VC Money for Location-based Ads on Cell Phones

Several top venture capitalists are putting their money where their mouth is regarding “‘The Smartest Companies to Start Now.’’ A press release on the competition from Business 2.0 (read the Sept issue which has the full story) lists the ideas and how much of $100,000 investors (like Steve Case and Howard Schultz) are willing to offer. Among them, alas, is location-based ads to your cell phone!

—Jeff Crowe, general partner, Norwest Venture Partners

WHAT HE WANTS NOW: GPS-enabled ads and coupons piped to your mobile phone at just the right time and place. Location-based marketing is a concept that’s been bandied about for years, but only now is the required technology becoming cheap enough to implement.

WHAT HE’LL INVEST: $3 million for a demo application and retail partners ready to test.

Wow, what a great idea! In a related article Laura Marriott at ClickZ discusses why such efforts are not yet mainstream.