18 Washington state tech companies bound for Barcelona, 2015 Mobile World Congress

OLYMPIA, Wash., Feb. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Demon­strat­ing the state’s lead­er­ship in the infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) sec­tor, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce is lead­ing a del­e­ga­tion of 18 com­pa­nies at GSMA Mobile World Con­gress in Barcelona, Spain, the world’s largest con­fer­ence for the mobile tech indus­try. This is the fourth con­sec­u­tive year Com­merce has show­cased new plat­form solu­tions and ser­vices in mobile apps, game design, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, secu­ri­ty and loca­tion map­ping devel­oped by some of the state’s most cre­ative and for­ward-think­ing busi­ness­es.

“Wash­ing­ton is one of the nation’s vital hotbeds for estab­lished and new busi­ness­es that are push­ing the envelope in dig­i­tal media and mobile tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment,” said Bri­an Bon­len­der, state Com­merce Direc­tor. “By putting our del­e­ga­tion on the inter­na­tion­al stage at Mobile World Con­gress, we are pro­vid­ing them with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to increase glob­al aware­ness of their tech­nolo­gies and pave the way for future growth.”

The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce Pavil­ion, themed “Choose Wash­ing­ton,” locat­ed at booth 8.1A11 in Hall 8.1, fea­tures a mix of estab­lished mobile tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness­es and star­tups for con­fer­ence atten­dees to view demon­stra­tions and learn more about their unique solu­tions. Pavil­ion exhibitors include: API­met­rics, Appten­tive, auto­Graph, Black Pix­el, Bud­dy Plat­form, Code­proof, Gen­er­al UI, Glympse, Gup­py Games|Media, IndoorAt­las, INRIX, Stu­dio Pep­wu­per, Play­Fab, Orca Wave, Sequitur Labs, Sirqul, and Syn­ton­ic, Touch­Base, plus the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, One Red­mond and Wash­ing­ton Inter­ac­tive Net­work. News and images avail­able at: http://topics.vpoinc.com/events/MobileWorldCongress15.html

“As a star­tup, Mobile World Con­gress offers tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty to intro­duce our tech­nol­o­gy to major glob­al brands. We par­tic­i­pat­ed in the con­fer­ence as part of the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce del­e­ga­tion two years ago and found the expe­ri­ence to be extreme­ly valu­able as we were able to focus on our busi­ness goals instead of logis­tics. After par­tic­i­pat­ing last year on our own, we enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly signed up for 2015, and we are already see­ing the ben­e­fits from being a part of this great com­mu­ni­ty,” said Bryan Trussel, co-founder and CEO of Glympse.

The Depart­ment of Com­merce team orga­nizes busi­ness match­mak­ing intro­duc­tions for their exhibitor com­pa­nies to meet with mobile car­ri­ers, hard­ware man­u­fac­tur­ers, enter­prise mobil­i­ty strate­gists and mar­keters to nego­ti­ate licens­ing agree­ments and grow glob­al aware­ness of their unique tech­nolo­gies and ser­vices. Though cus­tomer rela­tion­ships often take years to devel­op, Wash­ing­ton State­com­pa­nies have already report­ed near­ly $8 mil­lion in new sales as a result of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in this event over the last three years.

Many of the­se com­pa­nies are small­er star­tups that wouldn’t be able to attend inter­na­tion­al trade shows of this cal­iber with­out the export vouch­ers pro­vid­ed by Com­merce. Made pos­si­ble through the Small Busi­ness Administration’s State Trade Export Pro­mo­tion (STEP) pro­gram , the­se funds help off­set the cost of attend­ing major inter­na­tion­al trade events.

Wash­ing­ton State ICT Indus­try Snap­shot:

• 14,000 com­pa­nies with 176,600+ work­ers
• 90,000 soft­ware devel­op­ers
• 300 game design com­pa­nies
• $700 Mil­lion in 140 VC invest­ments, anoth­er 260 star­tups financed by founders and angels
• $600B in mar­ket cap among the top 10 pub­lic ICT com­pa­nies
• $2.6 Bil­lion in mobile app devel­op­ment

Wash­ing­ton state has grown its pres­ence each year as the world becomes more famil­iar with the region’s lead­er­ship in mobile tech­nolo­gies and role in shap­ing the future of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy, Bon­len­der said.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Choose Wash­ing­ton Pavilion’s fea­tured com­pa­nies, down­load the free iPad app for iOS users at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/choose-wa/id954735761?mt=8 . The app also pro­vides handy quick ref­er­ence infor­ma­tion from GSMA about the show venues, hours, badge pick-up and more for all atten­dees.

About Com­merce

The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce is the lead state agen­cy charged with enhanc­ing and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty and eco­nom­ic vital­i­ty in Wash­ing­ton. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.commerce.wa.gov. For infor­ma­tion on locat­ing or expand­ing a busi­ness in Wash­ing­ton, vis­it www.choosewashingtonstate.com.