Framehawk pockets $11M for mobile app solutions

Matrix leads funding for companies to easily translate software for mobile devices

Everyone wants a mobile app for their business or service. And with all that demand to find new mobile opportunities, companies like San Francisco's Framehawk are capitalizing on their advancements in mobile technology.

Framehawk announced Tuesday that it nabbed $11 million in Series B funding for its application solutions. The funding was led by Matrix Partners and included involvement of existing investors. Framehawk previously raised $5.5 million from Alsop Louie Partners, Correlation Ventures, and Triangle Peak Partners, bringing total funding to $16.5 million.

"There is a huge opportunity with customers who need to quickly make applications available from mobile devices like the iPad without compromising user experience, security, or device reach," Peter Badger, Framehawk CEO and co-founder told VatorNews.

The company, founded in 2008, has been gaining traction by offering solutions for companies to bring existing enterprise applications and key content to mobile devices like the iPad without requiring organizations to rewrite their applications. The company is currently staffed with approximately 35 employees and is in a hiring stage at the moment.

Framehawk also specializes in providing Wi-Fi or mobile networks, while maintaining enterprise-level security.

Since the mobile solutions company is currently in stealth mode, it is only working with a select set of customers to power secure and feature-rich mobile business applications.

The current Framehawk solutions deliver real-time performance over any network, while maintaining enterprise-level security for platforms provided to consumers or to provide in-house mobile solutions.

This new round of financing will help the start-up accelerate development and infrastructure to deliver the company's enterprise mobility software to new global organizations.

Last week, roughly 60 UBS Wealth Management Americas financial advisors kicked-off a three-month test drive of an iPad application designed to make it easier to interact with clients and access research reports — this was a join creation between a Swiss wealth management firm and Framehawk.

The password-secured app runs behind the UBS firewall on an internal cloud computing network while allowing access to proprietary research, client materials, account and contact data as well as analyst reports and their email accounts. Essentially, this is an all-in-one app for its financial advisors to use on iPads.

This new application aims to streamline the devices and software programs needed for advisors to maintain as well as reduce the more than 200 pages of daily reports printed each morning.

According to the latest Financial Planning Tech Survey of more than 3,200 advisors, nearly 40% already own some sort of tablet device and, of that group, 85% own iPads -- and just over half of all respondents said they plan to buy a tablet in the next year.

This move for mobility and working off of the iPad for financial and other professions is what has Framehawk poised for exceptional growth, especially if the companies in during its stealth-mode publicly praise the applications created for their customers and employees.

With more clients using mobile devices like the iPad for their business, personal and financial endeavors, the race is on among financial services and financial advisory firms to either develop the mobile apps they’ll need to meet this demand or find vendors who can do it for them. To that end, UBS also made an undisclosed investment in FrameHawk at the same time they were collaborating on UBS FA Mobile.