Startup, funding, Web-based Software

MeLLmo Raises $4M to Expand its Market for Mobile Business Intelligence Software

Bruce V. Bigelow 9/22/09

MeLLmo, a Del Mar, CA, startup developing graphics and visualization software, has raised $4 million from private investors to accelerate its penetration in the market for 3G mobile devices. The secondary round means MeLLmo has now raised a total of $10 million from its angel investors since the company was founded 21 months ago.

“I think we’ve ended up with a whole new paradigm for how to visualize and analyze data,” says Santiago Becerra, a co-founder and MeLLmo’s chairman and CEO. While the company initially focused its software for use on Apple’s iPhone, Becerra tells me MeLLmo intends to broaden its development efforts to other 3G smart phones. And as the advantages of its software become more widely understood, Becerra says he even anticipates demand among PC users.

The business-oriented iPhone application that MeLLmo introduced in May enables users to restructure statistics and other types of data gleaned from Excel spreadsheets, HTML table data, CSV files, and Salesforce CRM reports into interactive charts and graphical displays. The software also allows users to analyze and share their graphical displays with others.

The company, which currently has 28 employees, plans to use its new funds to expand MeLLmo’s sales and business development resources.

Becerra, who co-founded MeLLmo in January 2008, says it is his fourth company. His previous software company, Infommersion, developed Xcelsius, software that provides consolidated views of key business metrics. Becerra, a former Booz Allen & Hamilton management consultant with a Harvard MBA, sold Infommersion to Business Objects in 2005 (the software is now owned by SAP). He also was the founding CEO of Graphical Information, a software company he sold to Oracle in 1998.

Becerra tells me his current startup was still in stealth mode last …Next Page »

Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call 858-202-0492