15 Promising Mobile IT Companies Flying Under the Radar

by Chris Preimesberger

Adility is a localized online distribution hub for prepaid card products and coupons. Adility enables its clients (typically a local small or midsize business) to create and manage prepaid cards and coupons and distribute them via localized daily deal sites, location-based mobile applications, in third-party gift card malls, through grassroots marketing teams and on their own Websites and social media presence.

Apprupt is an affiliate network for mobile applications. It works with premium publishers, such as Financial Times Germany, Men’s Health, MTV and RTL, enabling them to monetize their mobile traffic by selling apps to their users through their own branded app store. Rather than being overwhelmed by a vast array of randomly selected apps, Apprupt app stores offer users relevant, targeted apps, presented alongside content that interests them.

Badgeville is a white label social rewards & and analytics platform. The Badgeville Platform leverages techniques from game play to create highly engaging Web experiences. Using Badgeville, Web publishers reward users with real-time achievements and reputation, while at the same time drive user behavior, achieve specific business goals, and measure and optimize user engagement.

Founded in January 2010 by Amazon.com veterans Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford, Barcode Hero aims to end “offline” shopping through mobile apps that connect in-store shoppers and help them make better purchase decisions, while saving time and money.

BillFloat is the first solution offering consumers more time to pay recurring bills. Consumers use BillFloat to get up to 30 days to pay more than 3,000 billers. When clicking the Extend My Bill button or on their biller’s payments portal, the consumer is invited to complete a simple online form. BillFloat applies a proprietary multitiered decisioning engine to approve consumer requests in real time.

Burstly is committed to providing the best platform for mobile developers to maximize both their marketing and revenue opportunities. The company believes the first step to achieving this goal is to empower developers with the tools and data needed to create an even playing field between themselves and the ad networks/ad exchanges. Burstly achieves this by providing transparency in reports and giving developers a platform with complete control over what ads are served and to whom they are served.

Cardmobili is the mobile loyalty cloud: a global service that brings together, in one place, loyalty and membership programs from all around the world, combining mobile applications with a global portal connecting consumers and brands. Cardmobili offers a digital and mobile service to replace all plastic and paper transactions between brands and consumers with actionable events on their mobile phones: vouchers, coupons, promotions, rewards and location-based interactions.

Checkpoints is a mobile platform that allows manufacturers to drive consumers to “check out” their products in any store in which they’re sold.??í Brands including Unilever, Frito Lay, Energizer, Tyson Chicken, Belkin and Kmart use CheckPoints to deliver targeted messaging to consumers at the precise moment a purchasing decision is made. CheckPoints has raised $1 million of funding from founders Mark and Todd DiPaola, who previously founded consumer marketing innovator Vantage Media.

Compass Labs is the next-generation Ads network, which enables advertisers to reach and effectively engage social media users. The mission is to bring relevant and timely advertisements to users based on their expressed interests and intent. Compass Labs’ real-time targeting enables brands and marketers to harness the power of social media to target potential buyers at the exact moment they are contemplating a purchase.

DataPop??íclaims that it makes every ad relevant by enabling marketers to turn their offers into targeted, unique messages on a massive scale. The company has designed an online ad platform using a customer’s business data to create relevant messages that??íwork across a variety of ad formats.

DoubleDutch helps any company, brand or community launch their own mobile, geo-social app. DD has been called “Foursquare for the Enterprise,” and “Yammer for Location.” Using the platform, customers can customize the application’s look and feel, define their choice of venues, and define their game mechanics. Check out the iPhone app.

Fanminder helps local restaurants, retailers and services firms send instant promotions to fans’ phones, social networks and online. It’s a dead-simple way to create more repeat business by growing a merchant’s fanbase, engaging fans with exciting marketing and tracking all results.

Fanvibe is a fan loyalty and engagement service. Fans use it to get all their scores, news, sports conversation and rewards. Teams, leagues, broadcasters and sponsors use Fanvibe to create 1-to-1 connections with fans, increasing engagement and revenue.??íOnly 7 percent of the NFL’s 180 million fans—according to Fanvibe—have ever been to a game in person. Fanvibe enables teams, leagues, broadcasters and sponsors to tap into the other 93 percent of fans who spend time and money. Partners include the NBA, Turner and Comcast.

Footfeed is the first white label, location-based multicheck-in platform that makes it easy for brands and marketers to build branded applications that work with all the major check-in networks, including Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Google Latitude, Twitter and soon-to-come Whrrl. Footfeed works by matching locations across the networks and enabling single sign-on so one check-in posts to all networks simultaneously.

Goodzer has developed what it calls the “first true local products search engine.”??í Goodzer’s search makes it easier for customers to find what they want at a location closest to them. Goodzer’s technology will be able to find consumers just about any product, in about 1 million brick-and-mortar retail stores, from small shops to “big box” stores, and at the same time provide local retailers with a platform to directly reach their target mobile and Web audience.