Poken Raises $2M, Appoints new CEO, and Moves Headquarters to Palo Alto
Lausanne, March 14th, 2012 – After winning the “Best Innovation in Mobile Advertising” award at the recently concluded World Mobile Congress, Poken today announced a $2M investment round led by Swisscom Ventures and Credit Suisse (through its SVC fund) to dramatically expand its US Sales Operations.
With increasing traction worldwide for its “touch” based marketing solutions, Poken also announced the appointment of a new CEO, Sri Chilukuri, to lead the company through its growth phase. A long-time Silicon Valley native, Sri held a range of executive roles for 20+ years at various start-up and public companies including Adobe Systems, VA Linux Systems, Bellamax, and Xerox Corporation. Most recently, Sri was Co-founder and CEO of Content Circles, which was acquired by Skype in 2011.
Poken’s founder and current CEO, Stéphane Doutriaux, will remain with the company as Chief Product Officer (CPO) and head up its Product & Engineering innovation centers. Jeff Heywood, another Silicon Valley veteran, joins the company as its new CFO.
On April 1st 2012, Poken will move its headquarters to Palo Alto, California to capitalize on its recent growth in the North American market. The new senior management team will help structure and grow the business by addressing the needs of creative agencies, event/tradeshow organizers, and industry partners to create a complete end-to-end customer experience.
”Over the past four years, we have proven our NFC+ technology, and introduced ‘touch’ marketing solutions to corporate events and trade shows” states Stéphane Doutriaux, Poken’s Founder and CPO. “We’ve successfully showcased our solutions at events hosted by 100’s of corporate customers such as PwC, Nokia, BMW, ABB, Adobe, and International Olympic Committee. In addition, we’ve teamed up with large partners such as Standard Register Healthcare to deliver our solutions to key vertical markets”.
“The successful fundraising and recent customer growth is a vote of support for Poken’s approach that is revolutionizing social networking and lead-generation at events and trade shows” said Sri Chilukuri, newly appointed CEO of Poken. “By combining the physical and online worlds in a seamless fashion, Poken will become a must-have solution for every marketer in the near future, akin to what CRM is for every salesperson today.”
About Poken
Poken is revolutionizing the event industry with its innovative and simple solutions to eliminate paper waste, boost networking and generate high quality leads. Equipped with our mobile apps and NFC+ products, people can collect digital information in the real world from smart tags, anddigitally exchange all their contact details with a touch. Through our customizable social network and online content management platform, event organizers and marketers can create an interactive and exciting experience for people to engage with their marketing materials, while measuring the impact and popularity of the information they distribute offline.
For more information, please visit www.poken.com or contact Carole Putallaz at press@poken.com or +41(0)21-311-0678.
About Swisscom Ventures and SVC
Swisscom Ventures is the corporate venturing arm of the Swisscom AG, the Swiss telecommunication group. Swisscom Ventures has invested in innovative and highly successful businesses worldwide. For more information, see www.swisscom.com/ventures
A subsidiary of Credit Suisse, SVC is one of the leading Venture Capital funds in Switzerland, supporting Swiss startups and SMEs with equity investments of up to $100 million. For more information, visit : http://www.svc-risikokapital.ch/
Press Contacts
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