Next Generation Texting Company GOGII Raises $8.2 Million in New Financing

Marina del Rey, Calif. (PRWEB) December 10, 2009

GOGII, Inc., the creator of the next generation texting application textPlus, announced today that it has raised $ 8.2 million in a round of financing led by Matrix Partners, with existing investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers also participating in the round. The new funding is the second round of successful financing for the quickly growing mobile start-up, which raised a Series A round from Kleiner Perkins' iFund in December 2007.

GOGII's mobile application textPlus merges both old-style texting - one-to-one conversations - and next generation texting - rich, engaging environments and instant group text conversations. The company uses sponsorships and advertisements embedded in the textPlus app environment to make it free for users to download and use.

"Today, the number of cell phone users who use texting as their primary mode of communication is staggering; GOGII has learned how to tap this enormous market and help advertisers reach consumers on their mobile devices in a way that has never been done before," said Scott Lahman, CEO and co-founder of GOGII. "We are honored to receive this kind of validation from two of the world's most successful venture firms. The new financing will allow us to bring our rich texting environments and features to even more carriers, handsets and users."

"What impressed us most about GOGII was its ability to provide a simple, appealing environment on mobile phones where rich advertisements are sure to be seen: alongside SMS messages," said Matrix Partners General Partner Dana Stalder, who will join GOGII's board as of this round. "Customer response to the textPlus app is higher than that of any competitor in the market we have seen thanks to its unprecedented features - and advertisers eager to reach this market are catching on quickly."

Since launching the textPlus app in June 2009, GOGII has taken several major steps to bring texting to a new level. This November, textPlus debuted username "text addresses," which allow anyone in the U.S. with a mobile phone to start a text conversation with their friends using textPlus by simply texting a friend's username to 60611. textPlus with usernames also provides users worldwide the ability to send messages app-to-app anywhere in the world for free. textPlus will soon make it possible to create usernames for entire groups, or communities, of users.

textPlus has proven to be tremendously popular with consumers. To date, the textPlus app has been downloaded almost 3 million times, reaching over 9 million people, with over 300 million messages sent using the service since June. And while only the top 5% of applications in the Apple App Store reach 100,000 unique monthly visitors, textPlus exceeded that by over 7 times in its second month of release.

About GOGII (go-jee)

GOGII provides customers the next generation of text messaging through its flagship product, textPlus, a feature-rich, third-party text messaging application. The company was founded in 2008 by the three founders of JAMDAT Mobile, the leading mobile entertainment publisher that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006.

About Matrix Partners

Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry's top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners operates in the United States, India and China. The firm has been fortunate to be a part of the creation of game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Aruba Networks (Nasdaq: ARUN), JBoss (Red Hat), Netezza (NYSE: NZ), SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR), Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR) and Veritas Software (Symantec).

About Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in over 500 ventures, including AOL, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, VeriSign and Xilinx. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public. In 2008, the firm launched the iFund to invest in mobile applications on the iPhone platform in collaboration with Apple. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, California; Beijing, China; and Shanghai, China.

http://www.gogii.com

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GOGII Debuts 'Personal Communities' on textPlus App

Marina del Rey, CA (PRWEB) December 14, 2009

GOGII, Inc. takes another giant step toward revolutionizing the way people text today by making it possible to reach out to and communicate with up to 50 people at a time using a single free text message. The company's flagship next generation texting application, textPlus, now lets users create "personal communities" that can be reached in a moment's notice via text - today's most ubiquitous mobile communication mode.

"People have used email group messages, listserves and the 'reply all' features on email to coordinate organizations and groups for years," said Scott Lahman, CEO and Co-Founder of GOGII. "But the fact is emails aren't received or read as quickly as text messages. We're bringing email-like functionality to texting so that every member of every work softball team, soccer parent group, high school clique, book club or Saturday night bar crawl can be reached in an instant."

iPhone and iPod touch users can download the free textPlus 2.1 app from the Apple App Store, then become "community managers" by creating names for their various groups within the app. A community manager can invite up to 50 members to join a group (members don't need to have the app or use an iPhone - they simply need to have a phone that is text-enabled), and send one text to the entire community name to initiate a conversation. In textPlus's chatroom-like environment, everyone in the group receives the text and everyone sees all the replies.

"All too often when you're communicating with a larger group, there's at least someone who 'didn't get the voicemail' or 'didn't see the email,'" added Lahman. "Our new technology aims to eliminate that frustration. What's more, it streamlines the process for organizers who may be sending out dozens of texts trying to reach everyone."

textPlus can save communities time and money. It only takes one single text message to reach up to 50 people, and while non-app community members get charged normal message rates for sending and receiving a message within their groups, they only need to send one text to reach everyone - not 50 individual messages.

The "personal communities" capability is the latest in a series of recent moves at GOGII to take texting to a new level. In June, the company launched textPlus, its rich, engaging app environment for instant, free sponsor-supported, unlimited group text conversations. This November, textPlus debuted username "text addresses," which gave non-app users in the U.S. the ability to start text conversations with their friends using textPlus simply by texting a friend's username to 60611 and users worldwide to send messages app-to-app anywhere in the world for free. textPlus will soon be available on Android Market.

textPlus has changed how millions of people around the world use text. To date, the textPlus app has already seen almost 3 million downloads, reaching over 9 million people, with over 300 million messages sent using the service since June. And while only the top 5% of applications in the Apple App Store reach 100,000 unique monthly visitors, textPlus quickly exceeded that by over 7 times in its second month of release.

Last week, GOGII, Inc. announced an $ 8.2 million Series B round of funding from Matrix Partners and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

About textPlus

textPlus (http://www.textplus.com) leverages GOGII's next generation text messaging platform to bring free, ad-supported one-to-one and group texting, and enables seamless interaction between textPlus users and their friends using regular text messaging (SMS). The service is currently available on the iPod touch and iPhone.

About GOGII (go-jee)

GOGII provides customers the next generation of text messaging through its flagship product, textPlus, the leading feature-rich and fun third-party text messaging application.

GOGII, Inc. is backed by venture capital firms Matrix Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' iFund, which is exclusively focused on developing applications for Apple's products. GOGII, Inc. was founded in 2008 by the three founders of JAMDAT Mobile, the leading mobile entertainment publisher that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006.

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GOGII Launches textPlus Application on the Android Market

Marina del Rey, Calif. (PRWEB) January 4, 2010

GOGII, Inc. announces today the launch of textPlus, its popular next generation texting application, on the Android Market. Previously available only on the Apple App Store, the unique textPlus app now brings sponsor-supported free and unlimited messaging to Android users and allows them to have instant group "conversations" in text with friends on most U.S. carriers.

"We've already seen overwhelming consumer response to the textPlus app in the Apple App Store thanks to the millions of consumers who've embraced our game-changing features - from casual texters to the staggering number of consumers who text as their primary mode of communication," said Scott Lahman, CEO and co-founder of GOGII. "We're pleased to make textPlus available to Android users, and offer even more text-happy mobile consumers this tricked-out, next generation

texting service."

By leveraging GOGII's interactive messaging technology, textPlus allows both old-style texting - one-to-one conversations - and next generation texting - rich, engaging environments and instant group text conversations. A useful 'reply-all' feature, similar to email, turns texting into a chatroom that lets users make plans with several friends at once, introduce people to one another or just carry on a group conversation - all in text and all for free.

Additional features make it easy for Android texters to make textPlus their preferred SMS service, including the international ability to send free messages from abroad to friends in the U.S. using a U.S. 10-digit phone number and free Notifications when messages come into the app, even when closed. What's more, textPlus lets Android users communicate with friends who aren't using the app - they simply pay for texts through their existing carrier plan.

GOGII expects the textPlus Android app to be met with the same degree of consumer fervor on the Android Market that it has on the Apple App Store. To date, the textPlus app has already seen almost 3.5 million downloads, and over 350 million messages have been sent using the service since June. And while only the top 5% of applications in the Apple App Store reach 100,000 unique monthly visitors, textPlus exceeded that by over 7 times in its second month of release.

Coming soon to Android are textPlus "text addresses," which let users personalize texting and facilitate conversations, all without requiring a phone number.

The textPlus application can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.

GOGII, Inc. announced an $ 8.2 million Series B round of funding from Matrix Partners and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers last month.

About textPlus

textPlus leverages GOGII's next generation text messaging platform to bring free, ad-supported one-to-one and group texting, and enables seamless interaction between textPlus users and their friends using regular text messaging (SMS). The service is currently available on the iPod touch and iPhone on the Apple App Store and on Android phones from the Android Market.

About GOGII (go-jee)

GOGII provides customers the next generation of text messaging through its flagship product, textPlus, the leading feature-rich and fun third-party text messaging application.

GOGII, Inc. is backed by venture capital firms Matrix Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' iFund, which is exclusively focused on developing applications for Apple's products. GOGII, Inc. was founded in 2008 by the three founders of JAMDAT Mobile, the leading mobile entertainment publisher that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006.

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