Contact:Amanda GriffithBumble PR
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SPROXIL, INC. WINS BOSTON IBM SMARTCAMP EVENT
Company Selected By Entrepreneurs, Investors and Industry Experts as City’s “Smartest” Start-Up
Somerville, MA, June 3, 2010 — Sproxil, Inc. today announced that it has won IBM’s SmartCamp Boston, held on June 3, 2010. IBM’s SmartCamps bring together five start-ups with 25 world-class entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts for a single day to work to build a Smarter Planet. The objective of the program is help companies build an ‘investor ready’ commercial proposition to secure funding, with winners eligible for a three-month IBM mentorship program.
Sproxil’s Mobile Product AuthenticationTM (MPA) solution enables consumers to text message an item-unique code for a rapid response that confirms a brand’s genuineness. For example, in Nigeria, consumers purchase medications with a scratch card attached to the package. They then scratch and text the unique numbers on the scratch card to a shortcode to instantly receive an SMS reply confirming the genuineness or fakeness of the product. To date, the company has coded more than 800,000 packages of Glucophage, used to treat diabetes.
“IBM’s SmartCamp provided a unique opportunity for Sproxil to gain valuable feedback from some of the industry’s greatest minds about our vision of using technology to help solve the world’s counterfeit pharmaceuticals problem,” said Ashifi Gogo, CEO of Sproxil, Inc. “Winning Boston’s event validates our offering as an easy, simple-to-use solution that holds great promise for other industries as well. We look forward to continuing these strategic discussions in Dublin this November.”
Sproxil competed alongside myriad companies during this exclusive event, including the four other innovative start-up finalists – Sendsor, SkyMeter, Proxpro, and GIS Cloud – to take top honors in Boston. IBM SmartCamp events will also be held in Tel Aviv, London, Silicon Valley and Paris, with one winner from each city selected to travel to Dublin, Ireland this Fall to compete for the title of “The World’s Smartest Startup.”
About Sproxil
Sproxil, Inc., a privately backed organization, provides world-class brand protection for emerging markets through software and services that work anywhere there are mobile phones. Simple, easy to use and with no consumer capital investment, Sproxil offers a comprehensive anti-counterfeiting strategy for cash-based societies. Delivering automatic protection, simple labels and robust back-end analytics with its Mobile Product AuthenticationTM (MPA) solution, Sproxil enables consumers to text message an item-unique code for a rapid response that confirms a brand’s genuineness. Our solution also helps companies connect directly to their consumers through customized text message responses – such as disease management tips – and ads that specifically target those demographics with known buying behaviors. Learn more at www.sproxil.com.
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