Dial-a-Phone founder joins investment into mobile app Roamer

Mobile roaming smartphone application Roamer has dialled up a $1.3 million funding round so that it can broaden its offering.

UK-based Roamer has secured the funds it needs to grow having already made its call technology available in 200 countries.

Set up by Nick Ustinov and Petr Antropov in London back in 2013, the duo then brought in Simon Rabin to head up financing and marketing. Roamer itself provides a way for consumers to link their normal mobile phone number with a local SIM card whilst abroad.

Richard Frank, co-founder of UK mobile phone retailer Dial-a-Phone, is part of the seed funding round and will now be advising on future growth.

Rabin comments, ‘This new investment round, including funding from industry veteran Richard Frank, will help us to widen our unique service and bring it to a mainstream audience.

‘With the proliferation of mobile use in everyday life, there is really no excuse in hitting consumers with excessive roaming charges anymore.’

Alongside Roamer’s SIM pairing service, it also provides a way for its technology to be used over Wi-Fi to make calls from a users own number. The business says the method is ‘significantly more convenient’ than traditional travel-based services such as Voice over IP (VoIP) as it is not dependent on the person answering subscribing or downloading a service.

More on recent seed funding rounds:

Leading up to the funding round, Roamer is reporting a 40 per cent increase in call usage over the last three months.

Roamer co-founder Antropov adds, ‘In the near future we plan to widen Roamer’s offering to include a SIM delivery service, where business travellers and holidaymakers will be able to order a local SIM card in advance of travel.

‘We also plan to extend the number of languages available on the app. These updates will further extend the ease and accessibility of Roamer.’

Roamer’s previous funding efforts saw the tech start-up secure $450,000 through an angel round in December 2013.

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter was the Editor for GrowthBusiness.co.uk from 2012 to 2014, before moving on to Caspian Media Ltd to be Editor of Real Business.

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