Vodafone Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of UK-listed mobile phone operator Vodafone, has invested €3.5m ($4.7m) in Qype, a Germany-based website for people to review places in Europe.
Vodafone was a new member of Qype’s syndicate, with a further €3m invested by its previous venture capital backers, Advent Venture Partners, Partech International and Wellington Partners.
The three VCs had previously invested €8m in Qype’s series A round in September 2008 after €5m of seed funding since its launch in 2005 by Stephan Uhrenbacher.
Ian Brotherston, chief executive of Qype since May, said Vodafone was the perfect partner as his business was becoming increasingly mobile.
He added: "Qype offers reviews of 600,000 businesses in Europe and has 17 million unique visitors per month, with 1 million Qype users on mobile devices. The future is in mobile."
A co-branded version of the Qype product will be pre-loaded on supported Vodafone devices, including Blackberry and Android, covering the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Ireland.
However, Brotherston said Vodafone’s distribution had not counted as part of the valuation but had effectively helped it join the consortium.
Peter Barry, head of Vodafone Ventures, said: "Qype has emerged as the leading local reviews site on the web in Europe. In the recent past we have seen Qype rapidly scale its presence both on the mobile and beyond Europe."