Last week the business daily Vedomosti reported a $10 million investment from Russian PE & VC fund iTech Capital in Mobile Finance Management Solutions (MFM Solutions), a Moscow-based provider of SMS services for financial organizations, in exchange for a minority stake in the company. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
MFM Solutions’ platform can send up to 10,000 text messages per second, and currently delivers over 2 billion messages each month for its clients, which include banks, insurance companies, online and offline retailers and state organisations.
In addition to advertising, clients use MFM Solutions’ platform to send payment confirmation messages, Vedomosti reported.
MFM Solutions claims it currently holds 40% of the Russian automized SMS market. According to J’son & Partners Consulting, this sector grew by 70% in 2013, reaching $101 million. Confirmation messages from banks for card payments represent 70% of this, while promotional messages from retailers and other companies make up the rest.
MFM Solutions has been “among the top three companies in the automized messaging sector for the past two or three years,” Victoria Podunova of i-Free, a leading mobile application and solution developer, confirmed to Vedomosti. She added that the company is unlikely to lose its strong position despite serious recent changes to the regulations governing automatic messaging, which require organisations to secure permission from the receiver before sending them any texts.
iTech Capital’s other recent investments went to travel metasearch engine Aviasales ($10 million in February) and event ticketing company Ticketland ($10 million in late 2013).
