Movius, an Atlanta-based mobile communications software provider, has closed a Series D funding round of $45 million led by new investor JPMorgan Chase & Co., with participation from existing investors PointGuard Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Anschutz Investment Company.
Along with the capital raise, the company has announced the appointment of new CEO John Loiacono, a Silicon Valley-based technology executive who has both worked at public enterprises (including Adobe, Sun Microsystems) and founded his own companies.
“After an extensive CEO search, I am confident that John is the right leader to inspire the Movius team through the next phase of hyper-growth,” said Movuis Executive Chairman Krish Panu, who has been serving as Interim CEO for the last two years. “As we pursue this massive strategic market in cloud communications, there is not a better leader to pick up this baton.”
Movius’ cloud-based software allows a single mobile device to be safely used for both personal and professional communications. By utilizing a multi-line device, professionals across financial services, healthcare, education and other industries can connect with their customers and clients over phone call, text, or SMS message, without compromising compliance or security.
Loiacono explains that Movius’ competitive advantage comes from the breadth of what they can do — the software works with multiple platforms, on any class of mobile device, with all operating systems and across any carrier. It also allows the device owner to use either cellular data or Wifi.
“Nobody does that all together, nobody does that with a carrier-grade platform behind it, on a global basis, with the ability to be audited and meet the compliance issues that are required for industries like healthcare or banking,” says Loiacono.
This funding brings the company’s total equity capital raised to $91 million. Most recently, they raised a $15 million Series C in 2017, which Loiacono says they used on “verification and validation” to make the product ready for enterprise use.
Movius currently has about 1400 customers, primarily small-to-mid-sized businesses, but they will use this funding to ramp up acquisition of those enterprise clients on a global basis. That’s what makes a strategic partnership with JPMorgan so valuable.
“We worked really closely with companies like JPMorgan and others to really fine-tune the product and get it to scale,” says Loiacono. He points out that their solution is particularly useful for highly-regulated industries like finance.
“Across the board, financial services firms are finding that customers and employees alike expect to communicate conveniently on their mobile devices,” said Larry Feinsmith, managing director and head of Global Technology Strategy, Innovation and Partnership at JPMorgan, in a statement.
Movius employs 130, about 50 of which are based in the Atlanta headquarters. They also have offices in Silicon Valley and Bangalore and will grow across all locations.