Copyright © 2014, The Oklahoma Publishing Company
The i2E-managed GrowOK Fund recently closed its first investment since the fund was established in 2011, placing $1 million in Oklahoma City-based Monscierge.
The i2E investment was part of a $2.05 million investment round joined by Oklahoma angel investors and Texas-based Affinity Angel Investment Fund I.
Founded in 2009, Monscierge is a hospitality industry technology company that provides hotel guests with local recommendations and facilitates communication between the hotel and the guest through a patented software application via touchscreen displays and mobile devices. Monscierge’s technology is already in use by hotels around the world and soon will be in more than 3,000 hotels worldwide in 90 countries.
“We’re going to use this new funding to build out our sales and marketing team,” said Marcus Robinson, Monscierge’s founder and CEO. “We took a lot of time to make sure our technology was scalable and reliable before we really started our sales and marketing efforts.”
Touchscreen kiosks
Monscierge uses touchscreen kiosks and mobile applications to provide recommendations on local restaurants and activities to hotel guests in their native language around the world. Recommendations are provided by local hotel staff in the cities in which the hotels are located. The software also allows guests to communicate with hotel staff regarding requests or concerns.
The GrowOK Fund is one of three Accelerate Oklahoma! investment vehicles created by i2E through a partnership with the Oklahoma Commerce Department and the U.S. Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative. The GrowOK Fund specifically targets established companies that already are generating revenue in the marketplace, providing them capital to expand with new products or services.
Waco, Texas-based Affinity Angel Investment Fund I, which supports entrepreneurship at Baylor University and the Baylor Angel Network, is joining i2E for the first time as a co-investor in this investment round.
Click here to read the article at newsok.com
