Emotive Communications, the US company behind a ‘next gen’ ringtone, has received $7.7 million in funding from investors including Warner Music and Bertelsmann.
The company’s flagship product, the patent-pending ‘Push Ringer’, enables a caller to push a ringtone to a friend. ME reported the concept exclusively in January, calling it a ‘flingtone’.
The chosen tone, which can comprise audio, video, animations, avatars or flash files, then overrides the receiver’s pre-set tone. If they like it, they can buy it too. Emotive believes the Push Ringer can also serve the growing VOIP market. Indeed, since launching on Skype in 2006, Push Ringer (known to Skype users as Ringjacker) has been installed more than 800,000 times.
The new backers comprise The D. E. Shaw group, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Warner Music Group and other media and telephony angel investors.
Anthony Stonefield, Emotive’s CEO, said: “Consumers are influenced by their peers. We are creating the ultimate ‘word of mouth’ network, literally by inserting music and video into the initiation of a phone call.”
Emotive unveiled its mobile prototype of the Push Ringer at the IMS World Forum in Monaco last month.
The chosen tone, which can comprise audio, video, animations, avatars or flash files, then overrides the receiver’s pre-set tone. If they like it, they can buy it too. Emotive believes the Push Ringer can also serve the growing VOIP market. Indeed, since launching on Skype in 2006, Push Ringer (known to Skype users as Ringjacker) has been installed more than 800,000 times.
The new backers comprise The D. E. Shaw group, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Warner Music Group and other media and telephony angel investors.
Anthony Stonefield, Emotive’s CEO, said: “Consumers are influenced by their peers. We are creating the ultimate ‘word of mouth’ network, literally by inserting music and video into the initiation of a phone call.”
Emotive unveiled its mobile prototype of the Push Ringer at the IMS World Forum in Monaco last month.