IObox Oy was a
Finnish mobile and
web portal operator. Formed in 1999, the
dot-com company ended up as part of Telefónica Mobile.
At a sale price of
$250m (€230m) in 2000, IObox represented the largest venture capital
exit in Finland until the sale of
MySQL AB in 2008 for $1
bn (€670m).
Growth
IObox was founded in January 1999 by Jari Ovaskainen (formerly of
Andersen Consulting
Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...
) and Henry Nilert (formerly of
Credit Suisse First Boston). Ovaskainen sold his car and used other assets including his life-savings to raise $120,000. A round of funding in the first month brought in €3.1m and the opening of a
Helsinki office in
Finland followed.
In November 2000, the office in
London,
England opened. Second round financing in December 2001 brought another €13m. In January 2000, after offices in
Munich and
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
had opened, London become the main company headquarters.
IObox acquired ''Futuron Wireless Solutions'' and with an
Oulu
Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: ...
office opening in March 2000 had brought the staff count to 70 persons.
At the point of sale in July 2000, the company had grown to 100 employees. This expanded further to beyond 200 employees by near the end of the same year.