Polar Mobile, a digital media platform provider that builds apps for some of the biggest media companies, today announced it has secured an additional $6 million in funding. The new round, led by growth equity firm Georgian Partners, joins more than $3 million invested in the company previously from private investors, bringing its total funding to $9 million.
The company is also announcing its plans for a new product line called MediaEverywhere, an HTML5-based content distribution solution for smartphones, tablets and desktops.
Polar says that MediaEverywhere will help reduce its customers’ development time, so they can increase their monetization opportunities through its audience intelligence and personalization features. The HTML5-based apps created with MediaEverywhere will work on any device capable of running HTML5 code, not just phones and tablets, but on desktop computers too.
Adding in the desktop component is a slight shift for the company – its current product SMART is a white-label solution meant for creating apps across mobile platforms. Specifically, SMART supports the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry (including PlayBook), Windows Phone and Nokia.
Polar has also partnered with handset manufacturers and has existing commercial agreements with Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Intel and Samsung.
Today, Polar counts several big media companies among its customers, including CBS Interactive, Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated, Shanghai Daily, Future Publishing, Rogers Media, Khaleej Times, TC.Media and The Wall Street Journal. In total, the company has worked with over 380 media brands in 12 countries, and its applications have seen over 1.6 billion pageviews served up to 11 million users to date.
Headquartered in Toronto, with a presence in San Francisco and Dubai, Polar expects to use the new funding to also double its team from 40 to 80 people this year and open new offices in New York and London.
The MediaEverywhere product will also roll out in 2012, first with existing customers before becoming more widely available.
Author : SARAH PEREZ
Polar Mobile licenses to global media companies industry-leading Platform Services that makes it fast and easy to launch branded mobile apps across every smartphone and tablet device. Thousands of mobile apps are powered by Polar Mobile’s SMART™ Platform for hundreds of media publishers in dozens of countries, including top-tier magazines, newspapers, broadcasters and online portals across the news, sports, entertainment and lifestyle media verticals.
