Iobox facts for kids

IObox Oy was a company from Finland. It started in 1999. IObox helped people use the internet on their mobile phones. It also ran websites that were like starting points for internet users, called web portals.

This company became part of a bigger company called Telefónica Mobile. When IObox was sold in 2000, it was for a huge amount of money: about $250 million (which was €230 million). This was the biggest sale of a company started with special investment money in Finland for many years.

How IObox Grew

IObox was created in January 1999. The founders were Jari Ovaskainen and Henry Nilert. Jari Ovaskainen even sold his car and used his savings to get the first $120,000 needed.

Early Funding and Offices

In its first month, IObox received €3.1 million in funding. Soon after, they opened their first office in Helsinki, Finland.

By November 2000, IObox opened another office in London, England. London later became the main headquarters for the company. They also opened offices in Munich and Stockholm.

In December 2001, they got another €13 million in funding. IObox also bought another company called Futuron Wireless Solutions. With a new office in Oulu opening in March 2000, the company grew to 70 employees.

Growth in Employees

When IObox was sold in July 2000, it had 100 employees. By the end of that same year, the number of employees grew to over 200 people.

What IObox Offered

IObox ran websites and services for mobile phones. They had as many as three million users. They also made special websites for other companies, like the Swedish company Telia. These sites used a type of computer programming called Java EE.

Wapagotchi: A Digital Pet

In February 2000, IObox launched something fun called Wapagotchi. This was like a digital pet, similar to the popular Tamagotchi toys. Users could take care of their virtual pet using special web pages designed for mobile phones, called WAP pages.

If an owner didn't take good care of their Wapagotchi, they would get text messages (SMS) telling them their pet was "hungry" or needed attention.

M-Mails: Sending Emails by SMS

From July 2000, IObox offered a service called "m-Mail" in the UK. This allowed people to send emails using text messages. Each email cost 6 pence. Other companies offered similar services for free, but IObox still provided this option.

Scaling Up Services

In February 2001, IObox announced that their "global wireless portal" had grown very large. It could handle 3.5 million users and up to 4,000 people using it at the same time. However, many users only signed up for free offers and didn't visit often.

Who Owned IObox

IObox was first supported by several special investment companies, including CapMan Plc. These companies sold all of IObox to a Spanish company called Terra Mobile in July 2000. This happened just 19 months after IObox was founded. Terra Mobile paid €230 million in cash. Terra Mobile was a joint company of Telefónica and Terra Networks.

IObox Oy stopped operating before December 2002.

New Iobox (2008)

In early 2007, a Finnish company called Lapitor Oy bought many of the old internet addresses that started with `iobox.*`. This new company said they wanted to continue what IObox had started in 2002. Lapitor planned to launch a new Iobox website in twelve different European countries.

Trademark for "iobox"

In January 2008, Lapitor was able to get the European-wide trademark for "iobox". They said they didn't have to pay anything for these trademarks. Telefónica had owned the original trademark after buying IObox in 2002. Since Telefónica didn't protect their original trademark, Lapitor started a process to try and cancel Telefónica's trademark.

Recent Updates

In late 2011, another company, Suomen Kierrätyskone Oy, bought the Iobox trademark (a special number for it is EU-wide trademark number 005806609). They also bought many internet addresses linked to Iobox.

In early 2012, they set up an email service for these old iobox addresses. At first, it received about 200,000 attempts to send emails to old iobox addresses every day. By the end of that year, this number grew a lot. Some days, there were almost 4 million attempts to send emails to old iobox addresses. The current owner of the Iobox brand is not publicly known.