History

Company`s History

Bemobi is a Publicly-held company listed in B3 S.A. – Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (“B3”) under the ticker BMOB3. The registration of the IPO, the registration of issuer category “A” and the listing of our shares in B3 has been concluded in the begin of 2021 and the official begin on trading sessions happened on February 10th.

Before the IPO, the Company was directly controlled by Bemobi Holding AS, whose shares are totally owned by Otello Corporation ASA, a holding company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Otello was originally known through the Opera Software brand and was one of the precursors of the Internet in Europe, with more than 20 years of history. They created the Opera browser, which was widely used as internet browser on mobile phones in the world and was one of the first movers on the early days to provide mobile services in emerging countries, reaching, for example, 350 million unique users per month, in 2016. In Brazil, Opera Software acted through Opera Software Brazil, which was responsible for the sale of mobile marketing services throughout the country.

Originally Bemobi has been created as a business unit of the Brazilian company M4U (a company acquired by Cielo and recently reacquired by Bemobi itself), one of the pioneers in new world of mobile data in the early 2000s, before the carve-out.

Bemobi operated in the mobile value-added services value-added services segment and established solid partnerships with telecom carriers, focusing on the creation of innovative services that complement their revenues beyond voice and data services.

  1. 2009 - Foundation

    In 2009, M4U was sold to Cielo. In this moment Bemobi has been spined-off moving from a business unit to an independent company. At that time, company’s focus was purely mobile content services distribution in Brazil, yet in version 1.0, and using carriers as its only distribution channel.

  2. 2013 - Apps Club Launch

    In 2013, as the 3G data networks began to accelerate and mobile phones migrated to smartphones, the market for mobile digital services migrated to companies like Google and Apple, which held control over the standard application stores. Observing this trend, Bemobi increased its investment in R&D, strengthened its team by increasing the number of direct employees to 100 and launched the first version of our current main service, the Apps Club. In 2 years, the 4 major national carriers established partnerships with us, trigging the opportunity to access almost all mobile telephone users in Brazil to offer our services.

  3. 2015 - Opera acquisition and International Expansion Begin

    Supported on the success of the service in Brazil in 2015, Bemobi began its international expansion throughout Latin America by entering into new agreements with the group America Movil and Telefonica/Movistar. In the same year, Bemobi was acquired by Opera as it identified Apps Club as the ideal service for expansion using its strength in emerging countries generated by its relationship with mobile carriers in these countries and its mobile browser large audience (Opera Mini). In 2015, Bemobi developed its first version of the proprietary channel platform to improve quality of its distribution channels delivering services through partners to the end user. Bemobi ended 2015 with 14 million subscribers.

  4. 2016 - International Consolidation

    In 2016, Bemobi structured the company for a large international expansion, which effectively got on track in 2017 when partnerships with 47 carries in over 20 countries has been established, initially via the Apps Club service. In the same year, Bemobi expanded the presence of its proprietary channel platform to other operators in Brazil. Bemobi ended 2017 with more than 150 employees and over 20 million subscribers.

  5. 2019 - Portfolio Expansion and First M&A

    In 2019, Bemobi reached the mark of 65 carriers in 35 countries as clients, with services being offered to their subscribers. Also, the access to the proprietary channel platform has been expanded to 15 more carriers worldwide. In the same year a new version of this platform (Bemobi Loop) has been launched. Finally, the Company acquired the Brazilian and Central American assets of Nuance Communications Inc. This acquisition was fully integrated in less than five months and lead to the offer of two new service lines that quickly progressed (voice messaging and microfinance services). We ended 2019 with 204 direct employees and over 34 million subscribers in our different service lines.

  6. 2021 - Initial Public Offering at B3 and New M&A’s

    On October 13, 2020, the General Meeting of Bemobi Mobile Tech S.A. authorized the application for registration of the initial public offering of our shares, in the “A” category, with the CVM. The IPO happened to raise funds through capital increase with the objective of speeding up our M&A agenda.

    In the month of August, we took a great advance in this agenda with the concretization of two important acquisitions, M4U (Brazilian) and Tiaxa (Chilean) which will complement and reinforce the Microfinance and Payments services options with solutions and competencies in digital payment methods, recurring collection management tools, credit scoring models, and differentiated anti-fraud controls.