Air2Web Announces $25 Million Financing Led by The Carlyle Group to Extend Global Leadership as Full-Service Mobile Marketing Provider; Global Private Equity Firm Leads Financing, Joins Board

Atlanta, GA – Air2Web, the leading provider of mobile messaging and marketing applications, today announced it has completed a $25 million round of new financing led by The Carlyle Group with participation from existing investors including Vantage Point, technology luminary Jay Chaudhry, and UPS. With these funds, the company plans to strengthen its leadership position as the world’s first full-service mobile marketing solutions provider, expand its global footprint and continue to enhance its portfolio of mobile marketing services. Air2Web provides a unified platform that enables marketers, ad agencies, broadcasters, enterprises and carriers to create, deploy and manage mobile marketing campaigns, including advanced multimedia and premium text messaging, alerts, and mobile content delivery, all with carrier-grade reliability.

Offering the most robust portfolio of services to companies bringing their brands mobile, Air2Web is trusted by a number of notable customers including American Express, Cingular, Citibank, SpikeTV, The Weather Channel, and UPS. The company boasts live deployments across the world of mobile solutions including campaign management, mobile couponing, mobile branding and brand presence, interactive polling, games, trivia, news alerts and notifications, secure instant messaging, wireless customer relationship management, group messaging and global content distribution.

"According to our data, Air2Web is well-positioned as a provider of full-service, message-based mobile marketing solutions to marketers, TV studios, advertisers and carriers. Text messaging has become a mainstream application, as 70.9 million Americans reported using SMS in July, with 8.9 percent of mobile subscribers reporting they participated in a TV or radio poll," said Will Hodgman, CEO and president, M:Metrics. "The company’s global footprint will serve Air2Web well in exploiting the many opportunities in mobile marketing around the world."

The financing was led by The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms with more than $44.3 billion under management and a diverse set of assets in relevant sectors including telecommunications, media and consumer brands. As part of the financing, Jay Koh of Carlyle will join Air2Web’s Board of Directors.

"The market for mobile marketing products and services is taking off quickly. We looked extensively for the best platform company to back in a rapidly growing and maturing market, and selected Air2Web as the early market leader with a strong management team, carrier proven technology and a successful track record of executing volume campaigns for leading global advertisers and brand marketers," said Jay Koh, Principal of The Carlyle Group.

"Air2Web is well positioned in a rapidly growing market with blue chip customers, a global presence and scalable technology platform. This new investment will help us leverage our strengths to consolidate our position as a leader in the mobile marketing space," said Sanjoy Malik, President and CEO of Air2Web. "We are pleased to have a top tier group of investors led by The Carlyle Group in this round. We feel confident that this, combined with our world-class team, established success with carriers and global brands, and strong balance sheet will lead to the rapid expansion of Air2Web’s presence in this explosive industry."

About Air2Web:
Air2Web is the leading provider of mobile messaging and marketing applications for enterprises and carriers. Headquartered in the United States with locations in India (serving the Asia Pacific market), France and England (serving the European markets), Air2Web solutions are the core of the wireless value chain—connecting marketers to mobile subscribers on a global scale. Since 1999, Air2Web has played a vital role in the successful mobile marketing initiatives of leading brands such as The Weather Channel interactive, American Express, PGA Tour, CBS Sportsline, Cingular and UPS. More information on Air2Web can be found at www.air2web.com/.