uLocate raised an additional $11 million

uLocate Communications, Inc., a publisher of location-enabled mobile applications, announced the close of an oversubscribed investment round of US$11 million. International venture capital firm Venrock led the round, with additional participation from returning investors GrandBanks Capital and Kodiak Venture Partners.

uLocate received US$5 million in two previous funding rounds.

uLocate will use these new funds to fuel the continued development and marketing of its WHERE platform. This solution is a mobile GPS widget platform for rapid development and publishing of location enabled wireless content and applications; it enables content and application companies to accelerate the time to market of location-based mobile applications.

For example Zillow, the real estate data and information website has created with this platform its own Widget that delivers location-based real estate prices through the WHERE mobile client. Consumers can add WHERE Widgets to their WHERE handset application by choosing from menus on the handset, or by dragging and dropping them from the Where.com website instantly to their phone. With the Zillow widget, when walking into an open house, they can immediately get the estimated value of the real estate in the surrounding neighborhood.

“Spending on consumer location-based services in North America is expected to increase by 160% this year as GPS-enabled mobile phones become more prevalent," said Phil Taylor, Director of the Wireless Media Strategies Service for Strategy Analytics.