Seems mobile marketplace companies are currently hip with Venture Capitalists.  In the last three months companies like Handango and Cellfish media have received millions of dollars in funding.  I think this illustrates the mobile industry is taking off in a big way. 

As the phones become more sofisticated in terms or processing power, users will be able to easily purchase all kinds of things - similar to the way folks buy all sorts of things like games etc for their PC. So I thought that it would be fun to review these two companies:

Handango - a mobile marketplace and content provider. This is a very cool site for all the mobile enthuisiasts. Institutional Venture Partners assisted them raise $60 million in funding to aid global expansion. Apparently Handango currently has over 16,000 content partners across more than 500 distribution channels. It is estimated that last year there were 68 million mobile phones projected to grow to 350 million by 2009. So I think there is big money in this space for whoever becomes the winner. Are we about to see the next Amazon.com of the mobile world?? See the press release article here:http://corp.handango.com/PressRelease.jsp?siteId=1....

CellFish Media  - This is a new digital content, marketing and distribution group that creates original branded content such as music ringtones, games, wallpaper, animations etc. CellFish Media via Telecom Media Fund has just raised  ( in the month of October) $50 million dollars to create a content powerhouse and reach an estimated 350 million suscribers. They are apparently big business already - 2005 revenues are reported to be about $116  million with more than 200 million transactions.  The company is based in New York and their site is at http://www.cellfishmedia.com. You can find the press release about their recent financing at http://www.cellfishmedia.com/pdf/Cellfish_Media_PR...