An Estonian firm called Fortumo created a platform for monetization and user growth for online service providers. With the use of Fortumo’s solutions, online retailers were able to expand their customer base via telco bundle agreements and accept payments through carrier billing and mobile wallets. A network of more than 300 telcos and digital wallets throughout Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa were made available to merchants by the firm. The business was established in 2007 as a spinoff of Mobi Solutions, a provider of mobile services. The business was bought out by Boku, Inc. in July 2020, although it kept using its previous name inside the organization. The business stated in February 2022 that it will combine its operations under the Boku, Inc. name.
Products
For user expansion and monetization, Fortumo offered the following products to digital content merchants:
Payment platform
This made it possible for online retailers to accept payments from customers of more than 300 mobile carriers and digital wallets. Merchants had the option of integrating using Fortumo’s API or one of the turn-key solutions offered for this purpose (Web SDK, Unified SDK).
Bundling platform
This made it possible for mobile operator users to have reduced or free access to digital services from online retailers and mobile carriers. For user identification, service provisioning, and creating any kind of bundle offer across dozens of digital service providers and over 280 mobile carriers, Fortumo’s platform offered a consistent interface.
Fortumo insight
Mobile operators were given a summary of their carrier billing performance using Fortumo Insight, which included information on account activations, payment patterns, the most popular content by category, and payment failure rates.
PayRead platform
This made it possible for digital publishers to bundle their products with the services offered by mobile operators and other digital service providers, and also made it possible for them to collect payments from customers using the mobile operator accounts that they had.
Customers
Publishers (Aftonbladet, Legimi), game firms (Epic Games, EA Mobile, Kinguin), app shops (Google Play), streaming services (Amazon, Spotify, iflix, Sony, Deezer, Tidal), social networks (Facebook, Badoo), and transportation service providers were among the merchants that used Fortumo.
Bundling and pay read platform
A bundling platform for mobile carriers and producers of digital content was introduced by Fortumo in February 2017. For the provision of subsidized or free digital service access to mobile operator users, traditional bundle partnerships between a digital content provider (such as a VOD firm) and a mobile operator need a separate integration between the parties. In addition to providing a common interface for user identification, service provisioning, and customizing any sort of bundle offer, Fortumo’s bundling technology enables mobile operators to connect to several digital content suppliers at once and vice versa. This sped up and simplified the start of package collaborations for all stakeholders. To link Amazon with the Indian telecom BSNL, Fortumo implemented its Trident Bundling Platform in March 2019. The business announced more Amazon launches with Tata Sky and Orange Spain later in the year. The business declared the arrival of Amazon for Jio in September 2020. Fortumo introduced the PayRead platform in January 2019, allowing digital publishers (such as the global media conglomerate Schibsted) to locate and bill customers using their SIM cards. The bundling platform and PayRead were both joined in March 2019. This made it possible for publishers to offer their goods as part of packages with other digital service providers as well as with mobile operator plans.
Purchased by Boku
Boku, Inc. declared its intention to buy Fortumo for $45 million in June 2020. July 1st, 2020 saw the completion of the transaction. Following the purchase, Fortumo continued to function as an independent company inside the Boku group of businesses under its current name until February 2022.
