By Allan Maurer
ATLANTA—Fourteen years ago the Web changed the way companies operate, says Whoop Chairman and CEO Mark Morel. “Fast forward to today and smart companies see the next juggernaut bearing down: mobile,” he says. The company’s Whoop engine is aimed at helping companies create and share mobile content over any wireless network.
The company, which closed a $2 million angel round this month, was founded six months ago. It acquired XOspere and its “Pocket Rocket” platform, which deploys optimized content to any mobile device. The company is actively seeking an A round of about $10 million.
The 35-employee company sees its Whoop engine as enabling not just entertainment and media content delivery to mobile devices, but also human resources communications, training, surveys, marketing and social networking.
“This is a huge, global market,” says Morel, who is on his sixth startup that included three exits of over $100 million each. Over the years, Morel helped his startups raise more than $100 million in venture capital and $25 million to $30 million in angel funding.
“There are 3.5 billion mobile phones globally. Clearly, it’s the biggest market I’ve ever been part of. There’s a fundamental shift in how people are communicating and interacting day to day. My kids all would rather text than email. Send one an email, they might not get it.”
While Morel admits the company has competition, including some good companies such as Motricity, which has raised more than $100 million.
He planned to take several months off after selling his previous firm, Procuri, a supply chain management software company acquired by Ariba in late 2007. But the appeal of the huge potential market .
Prior to Procuri, he was co-founder and chief administrative officer of Just Care, Inc., a private medical prison company; founder, president, COO and board member of Multi-Media Data Systems, a healthcare software development firm; and president of Meridian VAT Reclaim Inc., the U.S. marketing arm of a multi-national financial services company.
“I’ve been around the block, and I’ve got a formula for successful startups,” Morel says. That is, “Take a significant business problem in a huge market space and produce a solution for it,” he says.
Then, he adds, “Immerse yourself with the customers and actually listen to them. Have a user advisory council. “
Morel says Whoop’s differentiator is that it is first to offer its platform on a software-as-a-service model, and another is that Whoop’s platform also includes technology that can decide what the optimal content is for a given mobile device. If it can’t accept video, for instance, it will deliver the content in a form it can accept.
He says the company’s experienced management team which has a track record of executing on business plans is another advantage. “Everyone talks about that, but not everyone does it,” says Morel.
“We have a saying,” Morel notes. “We’re selling what you are buying, not just trying to create fancy technology we think is cool.”
On the Web: www.whoopmobile.com
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