With New Board Members from Coca-Cola and Ashley Furniture, $1M in Funding, and Growing List of Deals, Mobile Web Startup SavvyCard Enters Growth Stage
St. Petersburg, FL (PRWEB) April 14, 2014 -- In the past month, St. Petersburg, Florida-based mobile tech startup SavvyCard has hit milestones in investment, business development, and advising partnerships. Central Florida might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of high tech companies, but SavvyCard has managed to create excitement around its efficient, powerful mobile website and application development system. With over $250,000 in investments and commitments in the past 30 days, SavvyCard has surpassed $1million in total investment.
SavvyCard’s technology enables mass production of mobile websites for a variety of networking, referral, and marketing uses, making it ideally positioned to capitalize on a rapid shift in internet usage towards mobile platforms. SavvyCard is currently focusing on developing tools for real estate marketing, and has recently signed deals with Realtor associations such as the Pinellas Reltor Organization and the Miami Association of Realtors. It has also reached an agreement with RE/MAX METRO, a St. Petersburg agency that is purchasing extended SavvyCard services for over 120 agents.
But SavvyCard’s applications extend beyond realty, and the company is building an advisory team to guide it towards opportunities in other sectors. Recent additions include John Disa, former President for Global Retail for Ashley Furniture, who has joined SavvyCard’s Board of Advisors and will join its Board of Directors. Disa grew Ashley’s revenue from $2 billion to $3 billion during his time there, and SavvyCard will be drawing on his expertise to find applications in the retail sector.
Mobile tools are rapidly becoming an expected complement to brick-and-mortar shopping, says Disa. “For retail, SavvyCard can be adapted as a customer relationship management platform and an omni-channel solution linking retail products to customers, services, companies and websites to enhance the consumer experience,” says Disa. “Product data cards [mobile sites] can be integrated to a retailer’s supply chain, web applications and e-commerce.”
Also joining the advisory board are David Bennett, CEO of the Pinellas Realtor Organization, and Patrick Worsham, a partner with Newport Board Group and a former chief financial officer of Coca Cola North America. Newport is a national professional services firm of CEOs and senior executives providing advisory services to growth companies in a variety of industries (You can see Patrick Worsham speak about the potential of SavvyCard here: http://vimeo.com/thinktankconnect/review/91659313/446ee47735).
Worsham will be adding his financial expertise, while Bennett, impressed by seeing SavvyCard in action at PRO, will be helping develop new markets in Real Estate. “Today, there are a lot of mobile real estate tools that make the customer experience better – except that they tend to take the realtor out of the equation,” says Bennett. “Homebuyers largely want to work through the process with a trusted professional, and SavvyCard gives them cutting-edge mobile tools while keeping them connected with their Realtor.”
As SavvyCard expands its offerings, its allies will be vital. “We’re excited to add people to our team who have had success in a variety of sectors,” says CEO David Etheredge. “They’re going to be great resources as we continue to grow.”
The SavvyCard team knows plenty about growing startups – several of them weathered the dot-com boom and following shakeout of more than a decade ago. “We’ve been here before, and we know that growth is a big challenge,” says Daud Power, VP of Research and Development. Power was part of the team that built the pioneering Vivo streaming video platform, which was eventually acquired by RealNetworks. “Right now SavvyCard is transitioning into a robust growth stage. We’ve got the right market, we’ve got the right technology, and now we’ve got everything we need to really make it go.”
About SavvyCard:
SavvyCard, a technology startup based in St. Petersburg, Florida, helps organizations rapidly and inexpensively mass-produce customizable mobile websites for a variety of needs. SavvyCard mobile sites integrate specialized marketing and referral features, and SavvyCard is constantly making new features available to users. A mobile strategy is rapidly becoming vital to customer service and marketing as mobile usage surpasses desktop traffic, and SavvyCard offers a cost-effective way for businesses of any size to implement a scalable mobile solution.
Media Inquiries: Contact David Z. Morris, davidz(at)savvycard(dot)com; Office Phone (727) 502-6012.
David Etheredge, SavvyCard, http://savvycard.com, +1 (727) 858-4064, [email protected]
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