LOC-AID Secures $13M Series C Round From Private Equity And Venture Investors

BOCA RATON, Fla., Feb. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LOC-AID, the first and world's largest Location-as-a-Service (LaaS) company to connect the mobile enterprise to wireless subscribers, announced today it has secured $13 million in a Series C financing round to support the company's rapid growth.  The round was led by private equity firm H.I.G. Ventures, venture firm Intersouth Partners, and the Florida Growth Fund, LLC, managed by Hamilton Lane, LLC.

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LOC-AID achieved record results in 2010 and secured commercial connections with all of the largest North American wireless carriers.  Led by President and CEO Rip Gerber, LOC-AID has built a proprietary location platform that allows mobile developers to enable any location-based service for any application on any wireless device.

This round of funding will expand LOC-AID's industry-changing location technology and bolster its ability to connect enterprise developers to wireless customers for a wide range of location-based services including fraud prevention, proximity marketing, asset management, presence, check-in services, and more.

"We took the long-awaited promise of network-based location and made it available to the enterprise developer community," said Rip Gerber, President and CEO of LOC-AID.  "Last year our platform was adopted by the largest wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile.  Today we are location-enabling leading corporations in financial services, media, ecommerce, web-based services, transportation, entertainment, healthcare, and government services.  We're excited to have the Florida Growth Fund join as an investor."

"We believe LOC-AID has unlocked the value of location-based services for the enterprise by expanding the reach of location-based services to ALL mobile devices, not just smartphones or devices with GPS technology that require an application to be downloaded to allow for the device to be tracked," said Gregory Baty, Vice President of Hamilton Lane, who manages investments made by the Florida Growth Fund.  "LOC-AID provides that stable and reliable bridge between applications and location data without which the location services eco-system will not grow."

"We're very pleased to add Hamilton Lane to our team," said John Glushik, Partner at Intersouth Partners, and LOC-AID board member.  "Mobile Location Services is experiencing explosive growth, and LOC-AID is the clear leader for the mobile enterprise. This round of financing marks the largest investment made in a 'Location-as-a-Service' company and Intersouth is pleased to continue its support of this great company."

Significant achievements by LOC-AID in the past year:

• Secured network agreements and processed commercial location transactions on all Tier 1 carriers in the United States and Canada: an industry first.  LOC-AID remains the only company that can provide mobile device location on all of the largest carriers in North America.
• Achieved the highest wireless subscriber reach in the industry, which includes over 90 percent of all wireless subscribers in the United States, Canada and Mexico, representing a footprint of over 350 million mobile subscribers and wireless devices.
• Led the industry in location look-ups for third-party application developers.
• Recognized as the only pure-play "Location-as-a-Service" company in the mobile ecosystem by wireless analysts and media.
• Recognized by the CTIA as the "best-in-class" for mobile location privacy management, developer opt-in guidelines, and permission-based location enablement.
• First and only "Location-as-a-Service" provider announced by Verizon Wireless.
• First and only "Location-as-Service" provider announced by AT&T.
• First and only "Location-as-a-Service" provider launch on Microsoft's developer zone.

LOC-AID can provide real-time, mobile location information to any mobile device, allowing enterprises and mobile users to take advantage of location-based services. The company's rapidly-expanding customer base comprises leading organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, machine-2-machine (M2M), education, ecommerce, entertainment, and hospitality industries.