The Interview
Michael H Chief Executive Office
FullCircle® GeoSocial Networks Inc. $3M Investment Q Q
Can you give an overview of Full- Circle?
FullCircle® was founded on the premise of creating a true location based portal. By that I mean a one-stop shop for people to find nearby friends, people with similar interests, places and entertainment. We are a free ad supported service.
What are the main areas of Full- Circle’s expertise?
Our specialty is location based services, or as it is now described “GeoSocial Discovery”, and our service is all about bringing people together based on their location in real time. We integrate location awareness with social networking, enabling mobile and web users to identify and interact with other FullCircle members based on their physical proximity, interests and preferences - quickly, easily, safely and free. But we don’t stop there. FullCircle has added GeoFencing, location aware broadcasting and the groundbreaking dimension of enabling users to easily create location aware groups or communities surrounding an interest, passion or need, whether it be social or business. From within these groups, members can identify other group members nearby, send a broadcast
message to the group, and use mapping to observe group clusters, All opt-in with strong privacy protections.
In short, we allow members to create their own “location based networks”. FullCircle is available free to individuals and businesses alike and is currently available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile 8 and the web at
www.fullcircle.net.
Q
FullCircle has recently closed its funding round. How does this fit
into your business strategy?
We were lucky in that we found a great strategic financial partner in San Antonio Texas based Greehey and Company. Their investment strategy, corporate culture and offered deal terms fit well with our strategy of finding “compatible” investment partners and not trying to raise as much money as possible, getting hugely diluted and then figuring out silly ways to spend the cash like some “deal of the day” companies we know are doing. We recently turned down a seven figure offer from another group because we want to be careful in our costs/execution/dilution.
I am
a big believer in the promise less/deliver more model.
That being said we are debuting several exciting new products around the first of the year that will require substantial capital to bring to market so we are having early discussions with several groups about additional capital needs. I will admit is it a lot more fun when the larger VC’s start coming to you versus the other way around.
“FullCircle® was founded on the premise of creating a true location based portal. By that I mean a one-stop shop for people to find nearby friends, people with similar interests, places and entertainment.”
Q
What will the $3 million funding round be used for?
We are using the initial capital to fortify our backend infrastructure in anticipation of scale and new security concerns. We chose Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing environment which has turned out to be a
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www.finance-monthly.com
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