Purple Labs Revenues Jump On Openwave Deal

Serving as a ray of light in an otherwise dark economic climate, Purple Labs reported its revenue quadrupled to $14.1 million in the second half of 2008 compared with the first half, and that it has raised about $29.25 million in series-B funding.

The French company, a mobile stack developer and LiMo Foundation member, contributed the significant jump in revenue largely to the acquisition and relaunch of its Openwave mobile browser business.

Last June Purple Labs bought Openwave's mobile phone business for $32 million. The deal supplied Purple Labs with a cross-platform browser and a number of messaging client technologies. Company officials said they remain committed to upgrading Openwave's Surfer Browser along with its Mobile Integrated Dynamic Application System.

In detailing its second-half business, company officials reported that shipments of its browser and messaging applications topped 1.8 million units, and that it increased its employee population to 425 from 80 at the end of 2007.

Commenting on the company's economic performance, Purple Labs CEO Simon Wilkinson said the "revitalization" of company's Openwave business was achieved more quickly than he originally expected, adding that the revenue growth was ahead of plan. "More importantly, our strong H2 bookings confirmed that mobile phone manufacturers now value Purple Labs as a key supplier," Wilkinson said in a prepared statement.

Purple Labs' Linux-based phone stack is a standard component in the iMode-compatible Grundig phones distributed by the French carrier Bouygues.