Qiro GmbH Completes Successful 2nd Financing Round

The Berlin-based company Qiro GmbH has, after its initial start-up phase, successfully completed the second financing round. A group of strong financial investors have acknowledged Qiro’s huge potential for future success in the fast growing market for mobile services. Since 2006 the company offers a unique combination between mobile community with the buddy finder service and the extensive range of event-listing and classified directories. With the help of the new funds, the application is to be further enhanced with interesting additional options for comprehensively attracting new users to the community.

In the second financing round of the Berlin-based start-up Qiro GmbH, a group of investors provided a 7-digit Euro amount for further developing the Qiro-mobile community. The financial backers are, among others, Michael W. Schwetje, the High-Tech Gründerfonds, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin and BBAF Business Angels Fondsgesellschaft mbH. All of the initial investors have, after their initial financial backing support of the start-up, provided additional funds due to the success of Qiro.

Convincing Level of Innovation and Positioning in a Growing Market
The investors were especially impressed with the attractive offering of the Qiro community. “I was immediately convinced by the level of innovation and the business model. The mobile communication market and mobile marketing have a great future ahead” explains Michael W. Schwetje his decision to invest in Qiro. And Holger Heinen, Senior Invest Manager of the High-Tech Gründerfonds adds that “we have invested again in Qiro as the start-up provides with its platform, its multiple services and the innovative and secure buddy finder concept an outstanding offering that is well positioned in this market environment”. For Clemens Kabel, Senior Invest Manager of the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (holding company), the know-how within Qiro is the essential part: „The young, culturally-diverse team with its high technology expertise was the pivotal factor for our investment decision.”

Ever Increasing Amount of Users and Features
With the capital backing from the second financing round, the Qiro-platform is to be further enriched with many attractive features. Mrs. Suk-Hyon Paek, General Manager of Qiro GmbH, looks optimistically to the future: “Our financing is very well secured with the current investors. We will further enhance our position as innovation leader and thus accelerate the growth of the mobile community. It is in any case our long-term goal to become market leader in Germany.”

About Qiro:
Qiro is a new mobile service that for the first time enables a mobile community with a localization- and buddy finder-function as well as providing event-listing and classified directories. Community users benefit from a range of localization- and chat-functions plus an extensive spectrum of service information. Qiro offers business partners via its location based services an extensive and innovative level of advertising that can be distributed to customers pending on where they are about at the time. The offer from Qiro ranges from MapAds via push- & pull-couponing up to mobile ticketing. Some of the individual modules of the Qiro-application can also be used as “white label”-solution. For further information please go to www.qiro.de.

Media contact Qiro GmbH:
for further enquiries and to obtain image material please contact:

lauffeuer Kommunikation GmbH
Frau Katharina Brune
Bernstorffstraße 120
22767 Hamburg
Tel.: +49.40 68 987 68 17
Fax: +49.40 68 987 68 11
kb@lauffeuer-kommunikation.de

Short Profile of the Investors from the 2nd Financing Round:

Michael W. Schwetje:
Michael W. Schwetje is the founding shareholder of the OnVista AG and led the business as a board member until he left on the 30th June 2008. Henceforth Mr. Schwetje is dedicating himself to the role of investor and entrepreneur to innovative business models in the digital media industry.

About the High-Tech Gründerfonds:
The High-Tech Gründerfonds invests venture capital in young technology companies that transform promising scientific research into business enterprises. The seed financing of up to 500 T€ shall result in a technical prototype, a proof of concept or a proof of market. High-Tech Gründerfonds has access to a fund volume of around 272.0 million Euro. Investors in this public-private partnership include the Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology, the KfW Banking Group as well as the six industry companies BASF, Robert Bosch, Carl Zeiss, Daimler, Deutsche Telekom and Siemens.

About the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH:
The financial aid for the investment of the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH originates from the VC Fonds Technologie Berlin, which is partly funded via the “Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Wirtschaft, Technologie und Frauen“ (Berlin senate administration for economy, technology and women) with EU-money for securing investment spending for the technology hub Berlin in the coming years.
Since November 2004 the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (www.ibb-bet.de) administrates the VC Fonds Berlin and the VC Fonds Kreativwirtschaft Berlin. The three VC funds are financed by the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) and the “Europäischer Fond für Regionale Entwicklung“ – EFRE (also known as “European Regional Development Fund“ – ERDF), administered by the federal state of Berlin. Since 1997 the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH has made available approx. € 470 million for Berlin-based technology companies via consortia with partners, of which IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH has shouldered about € 66 million either as leading- or co-leading financier or as co-investor.

About BBAF Business Angels Fondgesellschaft mbH:
BBAF is an independent private equity firm founded by the Business Angels Club e.V. that is open for further investors and shareholders. The Business Angels Fonds take a holding in seed- and start-up periods as well as in the expansion phase of growth-orientated companies from the sectors bio-technology, micro-electronics, sensor technology, new materials, software, and IT- and communication technology.
The members of the Business Angel Club Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. are experienced and well-heeled entrepreneurs and managers from various business sectors and technology fields with international relationship networks.