What recession? Two privately-held software startups on the Eastside announced today they are raking in the dough, boosted by record sales. Besides that common thread, though, they could scarcely be more different. One company (Motricity) is in mobile content delivery, the other (Winshuttle) in business-management software. The first is heavily funded by VCs, the latter is bootstrapped. Motricity was born and raised in the Southeast before moving to the Northwest, while Winshuttle is homegrown.
—Bellevue, WA-based Motricity, a mobile software firm, announced it generated more than $100 million in revenue in 2008 (no word on profits yet). The startup, which is backed by more than $400 million in venture funding from the likes of Carl Icahn, Technology Crossover Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Advanced Equities, and Intel Capital, provides a software platform for delivering mobile content. Motricity was founded in Nashville, TN, by Ryan Wuerch in 2001 (it was originally called PowerByHand). The company moved to Bellevue in March 2008 to be closer to large wireless customers like T-Mobile.
—Bothell, WA-based Winshuttle, a business-software firm that helps companies move data between spreadsheets and other applications, announced its revenue doubled in 2008 over 2007, and its total sales increased by 34 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the third quarter. The company didn’t give any absolute revenue numbers, but it did say it added 38 new customer accounts in the last three months of last year. Winshuttle also said it’s getting a new CEO—Lewis Carpenter, who was formerly Winshuttle’s president and chief operating officer. Co-founder and chairman Vikram Chalana is shifting from chief executive to chief technology officer.
