April 8, 2007
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
By Marcia Heroux Pounds
mVisible has a ring to it for software engineer who moonlights in band
A company with a view: The office décor at mVisible Technologies reflects its location on State Road A1A in Deerfield Beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Myk Willis, left, is one of four founders and is chief technology officer. Bill Madden, right, is a founder and vice president of engineering.
By day, 31-year-old Matt Farr is a software engineer in Boca Raton. By night, Farr plays in an
alternative music band.
To get the word out about his music, he uses mVisible Technologies, a start-up business founded
by a team of former executives and engineers from Citrix Systems, South Florida's largest
homegrown technology firm.
"It's so neat as a band to have people walking around and their phone rings and it's your song.
It's great marketing," Farr said.
mVisible is counting on independent artists like Farr as its core customers. With the start-up's
MyxerTones .com, bands create "MyxerTags" that makes ringtones out of their original songs.
Fans can download the ringtones to their cell phones for free or a small cost, which is up to
the band.
The technology platform that mVisible has developed also allows users to send photos, videos and
audio such as comedy routines to cell phones.
The company's product targets the 1.2 million local bands around the country seeking to market
their original music. "In South Florida, there's not much of a live music scene down here,"
complains Farr, who hopes to market the CD of his new band, Vanilla Monk, through MyxerTones.com.
MVisible echoes an earlier era of start-ups. The company started in founder Myk Willis' Boca
Raton home, with 10 people working on computers in Willis' living room. They're drawn together
by the free Internet and the challenge of creating a new technology platform. The company has
since moved to offices in Deerfield Beach.
The firm's chief executive is Scott Kinnear, a former Citrix Systems executive who once tried
to hire Willis and was turned down. Willis later did join Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix. Bill
Madden and Scott Clark, both software engineers, round out the four founders who once worked
at Citrix.
Even Citrix Systems CEO Mark Templeton is among the investors in the seed capital raised to
launch the company, according to mVisible.
The company's revenue stream now is from advertising on its site and a cut of ringtone sales.
But eventually, mVisible sees the big bucks in sending advertising to cell phones.
The mVisible management team points to the huge potential market: The ringtone market alone
will be $15 billion in 2010..
The company's founders provided seed capital of about $335,000, and most of the team worked
with no salary for a year or more. mVisible also has attracted $3 million in financing from
New World Angels, a group of wealthy private patrons of start-up businesses and technologies
based in South Florida.
When Kinner made his presentation to the angels investors, he pointed to the more than million
bands on MySpace.com. With MyxerTones, the bands can embed a link to their music on their
MySpace page.
"Only two members of our group had ever heard of MySpace," admits Jonathan Cole, a partner with
Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge law firm and a member of New World Angels. But they were impressed
with the potential size of the market.
The angel group also liked mVisible's technology and the strength of its management team.
"This is a world-class management team -- the best we've looked at," he said.
Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6650.
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