Poken raises USD 2 million, appoints new CEO, and moves to the US

The financing round was led by Swisscom Ventures and Credit Suisse (through its SVC fund). The money will be used for marketing and sales in North America. On April 1st 2012, Poken will move its headquarters to Palo Alto, California.

With increasing traction worldwide for its “touch” based marketing solutions, Poken also announced the appointment of a new CEO, Sri Chilukuri, to lead the company through its growth phase. A long-time Silicon Valley native, Sri held a range of executive roles for 20+ years at various start-up and public companies including Adobe Systems, VA Linux Systems, Bellamax, and Xerox Corporation. Most recently, Sri was Co-founder and CEO of Content Circles, which was acquired by Skype in 2011.

Poken’s founder and current CEO, Stéphane Doutriaux, will remain with the company as Chief Product Officer (CPO) and head up its Product & Engineering innovation centers. Jeff Heywood, another Silicon Valley veteran, joins the company as its new CFO.

”Over the past four years, we have proven our NFC+ technology, and introduced ‘touch’ marketing solutions to corporate events and trade shows” states Stéphane Doutriaux, Poken’s Founder and CPO. “We’ve successfully showcased our solutions at events hosted by 100’s of corporate customers such as PwC, Nokia, BMW, ABB, Adobe, and International Olympic Committee. In addition, we’ve teamed up with large partners such as Standard Register Healthcare to deliver our solutions to key vertical markets”.

“The successful fundraising and recent customer growth is a vote of support for Poken’s approach that is revolutionizing social networking and lead-generation at events and trade shows” said Sri Chilukuri, newly appointed CEO of Poken. “By combining the physical and online worlds in a seamless fashion, Poken will become a must-have solution for every marketer in the near future, akin to what CRM is for every salesperson today.”