Dashwire raises $1M

The company is on its way to profitability, but hasn't gotten there yet

Updated 10:45 am to correct the statement that the company is aiming to draw 300 million users by the end of 2011. The statement was inaccurate, as the company is pursuing a market that has seen more than 300 million smartphones shipped in 2010.

Dashwire, a mobile services platform, has raised nearly $1 million in a recent round of funding, according to an SEC filing.  The Seattle, Wash.-based company previously raised $2.86 million over three rounds of funding in the last two years, and this latest round brings the company’s total financing to nearly $3.86 million.

Founded in 2006, the company provides mobile-web connected services to enable device makers, carriers, and retailers to provide device management software services on mobile phones.  The mobile-plus-web platform is designed to help mobile users setup their phones, switch from one phone to another, and back-up everything on their phones and manage it all online.  Using the Dashwire platform, users can automatically sync photos, videos, text messages, and contacts to a single Web-based dashboard where they can also manage their cell phone usage and send text messages from their computer desktop.  And the service is free for consumers.

The Dashworks platform supports Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows, representing some 75% of all mobile phones being sold today.

The investors have not been disclosed, and the company could not be reached for comment, but among its previous investors are Best Buy Capital, the investment arm of the electronics retailer, Best Buy; Serena Glover, who was previously the co-founder of Twango, Inc. and a director at Nokia and Microsoft; Mikal Thomsen, co-founder of the private investment firm Trilogy Partnership; Geoff Entress, a partner at Voyager Capital; Ying Zeng; and Ford Davidson, Dashwire’s founder and CEO.   

“We have a number of projects that we’re going to be shipping this fall,” said Davidson in a recent interview with Xconomy. “We raised a small amount of money just to insure that we hit those milestones and have enough cash to ship those products, so that we can do a larger funding round later in the year.”

Davidson also revealed in the interview that the company started out as a direct-to-consumer business, and “as we got some coverage, all these companies in the industry came to talk to us about how we could help them,” said Davidson, who added that the company decided, at that point, to shift to a licensee program in 2009.

While the company has not yet reached profitability, Davidson told Xconomy that Dashwire is on track to generate $1 million in revenue this year.

Image source: dashwire.com