alarm:clock

Wireless - Thursday, December 20, 2007

iPhone Competitor Danger Inc. Files IPO

Is Wall Street ready to back a company with the threatening name Danger. Inc.? We'll see. Founded in 200, the Palo Alto-based startup has filed for an IPO.

The Danger Hiptop, also sold as the T-Mobile Sidekick, is a GPRS/EDGE mobile phone with wireless Internet capabilities and some functionality similar to a PDA. Danger provides the Hiptop OS software and back-end services for the device. These include downloadable software applications, email hosting, instant messaging and web proxies. Danger's key partners are Sharp and Motorola which manufacture the devices and Tmobile which markets and distributes them.

For the year ended September 30, Danger reported a loss of $28.1M, compared with a loss of $21M the previous year. Revenue rose 14% to $56.4 million from $49.3M in the prior year. Danger had a slew of investors, including Redpoint, Mobius Tmobile's Tventures, Sharp, Motorola, and Orange Ventures. The latest round was Series D in 2003 when it raised $35M which brought total funding to $77M.

The Hiptop is on its 5th version.