TXT4, investment in SMS advertising response technology

Oxford Capital Partners and Noble Fund Managers invest £1.25m in TXT4 Limited

Oxford, UK, 23th March 2006
Oxford Capital Partners and Noble Fund Managers announce their investment in London-based TXT4 Limited, a pioneer and leader in the provision of mobile response technology to advertisers. Oxford Capital Partners, acting as lead investor, and Noble Fund Managers invested £1.25m on behalf of Oxford Gateway Funds 2 and 3 and Noble VCT. The investment will provide the expansion capital to grow the sales and marketing function and increase the technical resource and follows the £250k investment from The Capital Fund in December 2005. TXT4 was advised by GP Bullhound, the technology investment bank.

Founded in 2002, TXT4 is pioneering a new market and business model for automated advertising response management. TXT4 is looking to harness the effectiveness of the mobile phone to deliver to advertisers a cost effective 24/7 means to manage and measure response to their TV, press, radio and poster advertising campaigns. This solution enables clients to save money on call centres and gain verified customer data as well as offering increased convenience to the consumer. The company’s vision is to become the leading global provider of automated response management software to the world’s largest brands, a market which the company currently estimates to be in excess of £750m.

TXT4 currently provides software to manage advertising response via SMS (text messaging). By using text as a channel for advertising response, brands can increase response rates whilst driving down the cost per response to a fraction of the cost of using a call centre. An added value aspect of the technology is that it delivers a real-time return on investment measurement on a whole campaign, a media channel or even individual adverts through gathering and verifying customer details.

Tim Carrigan, CEO of TXT4, commented; “The management team has invested significant cash and time in bringing the business to this level. The development capital funding from Oxford Capital Partners and Noble Fund Managers will allow us to move to the next stage of our development through an increased sales and marketing capability and enhanced technical resource. We are also grateful to The Capital Fund for providing earlier stage funding that bridged the gap to securing significant funds in this round.”

David Mott, Director of Oxford Capital Partners added; “TXT4 have experienced rapid growth and are poised to replicate this growth in international markets. We are pleased to be supporting the company in this new stage of development.”

Richard Hope, Investment Manager at Noble Fund Managers, added “Noble Fund Managers is pleased to make an investment in such a fast growing, innovative company. The investment will enable the company to offer an improved service to its customer base, increase both market share and long-term prospects for shareholders and expand the TXT4 product offering across Europe.”

About Oxford Capital Partners

Oxford Capital Partners is a venture capital firm focused on investing in science and technology businesses. Specialising in identifying exceptional companies with high growth potential, Oxford Capital Partners supports companies from an early stage through to IPO. Oxford Capital Partners manages the Oxford Gateway Fund No.1 (1999) and the Oxford Gateway Fund No.2 (2003) which together have made 22 investments in the technology and life science sectors. Oxford Capital Partners is an active supporter of the UK’s science and technology base and was voted Venture Capital House of the Year in December 2005 by the Unquote Awards.

About Noble

Noble is an independent UK investment bank. It has three operating companies providing a range of services including investment management of specialist asset classes, corporate finance and broking services and corporate outsourcing such as financial management, HR and company secretarial. All three companies are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Noble Fund Managers is the fund management arm of Noble Group. The Equity & Venture Finance Division of Noble Fund Managers provides investment management and investment advice across institutional and retail investment funds.

About TXT4 Limited

Founded in 2002, TXT4 is the world’s leading supplier of mobile response solutions, with the unique ability to deliver solutions in over 200 countries across more than 550 networks. The company currently has three products – TXT4 MORE; TXT4 Nearest; TXT4 Callback. TXT4 MORE is the company’s core product which is a software platform delivered as a hosted service which allows consumers to use text 24/7 to respond to advertising. TXT4 Nearest provides store or dealer locations based on phone location or postcode. TXT4 Callback automates call back requests (for example if a smoker wants advice on giving up they can text and get someone to call them back at an agreed time).

Clients include Ford, Volkswagen, Vauxhall, GCAP media, The Scottish Executive, Scottish Widows, HBOS, Oxfam and Bose.

The company of 30 staff is headquartered in London with a presence in France, Germany, Ireland and Australia.

About The Capital Fund

Launched in 2002, The Capital Fund is a £50 million venture capital fund which backs fast-growing, small and medium-sized enterprises in Greater London. To date, the Fund has made 37 investments in London-based companies and was named Regional Venture Capital Fund of the Year at the Investor Allstars Awards 2005. The Capital Fund is the largest of the nine Regional Venture Capital Funds and is managed by YFM Venture Finance Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority and part of the YFM Group.

For further information, please contact:

Joanne Telford
01865 860 760
jtelford@oxcp.com

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