Mobile networking firm NearVerse has revealed that it secured $1 million (656,000) in seed funding from Meakem Becker Venture Capital in Q4 2009. NearVerse has been using the funding to further develop and proliferate its software-based networking platform to accelerate mobile Internet beyond the capabilities of existing 3G or 4G carrier networks.
Founded in 2009, NearVerses proprietary networking platform optimizes the mobile Internet experience through a proximity-powered system, improving media delivery speeds by a factor of 5-10X. NearVerse says its network architecture also leads to greater spectral efficiency and helps substantially reduce the load on existing carrier networks.
NearVerse launched its first app, LoKast for iPhone and iPod touch, at the SXSW festival in Texas recently. LoKast offers users the ability to discover and share rich media content with other users nearby. Using LoKast, users add music, photos, videos, contacts and web links to their personal LoKasts, and then automatically discover other users within 300 feet and share media with them in real time. LoKast minimizes reliance on 3G connectivity by using NearVerses optimized networking platform. The app is available for download here.
NearVerse notes that mobile networks are bogged down by an explosion of video consumption, a multitude of wireless-enabled devices, and consumer demand for a real-time and dynamic mobile Internet experience akin to that of PCs. The company points out that mobile data traffic has ballooned since the launch of the iPhone, with AT&Ts traffic increasing by over 6,000%. Verizon Wireless has also faced significant spikes of over 300% since launching the Droid Smartphone. Networks are facing enormous challenges with this surge of rich media traffic and will require out-of-the-box network architectures and content delivery approaches to stay abreast of the mobile Internet revolution. 
We believe that there is a great opportunity to build on the prior pioneering efforts of companies such as Google, Amazon, Skype, and Akamai in optimizing the wireline Internet, to solve the biggest issues facing the mobile Internet today, says NearVerse CEO, Boris Bogatin. By unifying carrier and short-range wireless networks into a holistic, optimized system, NearVerse is well positioned to lead this new wave of mobile Internet evolution.