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Wireless - Monday, March 24, 2008

Israeli Zoolander Handset Maker Modu Raises $100M

We get ribbed a fair amount for the smallness of our cell phone. We keep it on hand because we don't like sitting all day on a large piece of metal and glass. And if you have ever seen the Ben Stiller movie Zoolander you know that tiny phones are sheik.

We like the idea behind Israel's Modu, a handset maker that has created a catalog of phones that let you go out at night with a smallish phone but slap on a additional component so that you can get and receive email and surf the Web by day. Modu seems to have hired a gang of product designers to build an infinate number of skins or shells that you insert your core phone into. The company plans to sell the shells for cheap so that you can give them to mates or go through them as fashion statements.

Modu has just closed a $100M round of funding to take its products to market according to Globes, at a Pre-money $150M valuation. Modu was founded eighteen months ago by Dov Moran, who founded msystems which he sold to SanDisk for $1.6B (he's now moran). Modu has raised $20M from Genesis Partners, Gemini Israel Funds, SanDisk and from Moran.

Modu announced it had signed a collaboration agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG) for the development of specialized jackets.

Read - Globes