The company behind mobile event app Applauze has raised $7.2 million from investors including True Ventures, m8 Capital and StubHub co-founder Jeff Fluhr, on the back of quick growth from selling tickets through its app, which launched in March of this year. Applauze"The early wave of apps were really hard to monetize," said True Ventures partner Jon Callaghan, who led the round. "But we're seeing a new generation of app commerce, led by Uber and eBay and Amazon." Though there are many mobile ticketing apps, Callaghan said he was betting on Applauze for the team's "great product sense" - they …

According to some of the latest information that has been released by ABI Research, a number of industry giants - including Google, Apple, and eBay - are placing their focus on making considerable moves into the realm of geolocation and its many possibilities. To start, the estimates by ABI Research have suggested that the geolocation indoor market will be worth more than $4 billion by 2018. This was revealed in the quarterly Location Technologies Market Data which is issued by that agency. It provides a measure of the adoption of indoor geolocation technologies, mapping, as well as businesses that are …

Denis O'Brien's Digicel has joined the ITLG's investment arm SVG Ventures in making a US$6m Series B investment in Californian mobile commerce player Flint Mobile. Flint launched its popular iOS payment app under a year ago and just released its Android app on Google Play last week. The US$6m round was led by Digicel and SVG Ventures. Previous investors include Storm Ventures and True Ventures who also contributed to the round.

Over the last few weeks, the combination of the groundbreaking mobile payments announcements made from Money2020 in Las Vegas and from the GSMA's NFC & Mobile Money Summit in New York have allowed a much clearer vision of the future of this technology to be formed. This has given the world the opportunity to see a much clearer vision of the future of mobile payments technology, with increasingly pervasive tech as well as a considerable cooperation from the industry. As was pointed out by the co-founder and CEO of Ensygnia (a visual pay technology), Richard Harris, m-commerce venders and retailers …

Kohl's has unveiled its holiday marketing plan that centers around the retailer's iPhone application, possibly hinting at a larger mobile payments plan from the retailer in the future. Kohl's is focusing its holiday efforts around its branded app to integrate rewards and location-based offers this year as part of a broader focus on building out a more comprehensive mobile strategy. Kohl's is also one of the retailers involved in Merchant Customer Exchange, which is slated to roll out soon and will incorporate mobile payments into the participating retailers' point-of-sale systems.

Custom couponing app Photopon is releasing version 2 of its iOS app, which lets consumers select nearby deals, attach a personal photo and write a message to create a personalized coupon that can be shared through the app, email, text messages or social networking sites. Using the iPhone's location services, Photopon presents a selection of deals from the nearest restaurants, bars, stores and venues. After choosing a deal, users can snap a photo, type in a message and then share the custom coupon through email, text messages, Facebook or Twitter. Recipients can redeem the coupon. Photopon offers deals from both …

Given the publicity around showrooming, and ongoing threat to offline retailers posed by ecommerce, this is somewhat surprising. Especially as recent stats from Columbia found that 70% of 'mobile assisted shoppers' viewed products in-store, and then made their purchases online. These new stats are from the new Econsultancy/BuyDesire Mobile Marketing and Commerce Report 2013, which also explores the extent to which companies are committed to mobile, the channels and technologies they are using, and the challenges they face in improving their capabilities. It is based on a global survey of more than 500 Econsultancy users from companies and agencies, carried …

QVC, which expects to do more than $1 billion in global mobile sales in 2013, is counting on mobile commerce as a big driver of web sales in the U.S. and overseas. In the U.S., m-commerce makes up about 30% of e-commerce sales for QVC compared with 45% in Japan, 44% in the United Kingdom, 19% in Italy and 13% in Germany. While not disclosing actual sales and using a June-through-June comparison time frame, Italy was QVC's fastest growing m-commerce market at an annual growth rate of 331%. Italy was followed by Germany at 294%, the United Kingdom at 133%, …

Orbitz.com is making a significant play for a bigger role in its customers' journeys beyond simply booking a flight or hotel, with mobile loyalty playing a crucial role in bringing this vision to fruition. The new Orbitz Rewards program enables users to earn rewards at a higher rate for hotel bookings made from its mobile apps than booking through other channels. It is fully integrated with the Google Wallet loyalty feature for both Android and iOS and features unique functionality such as the ability to view hotels in search results with member's rewards already applied.

Saks Fifth Avenue, in partnership with Stylewhile, has launched a new iPad App that allows users to fit clothing to their specific body type before purchase. Not only can users virtually 'try on' clothes, but they can also use the App to select various items from retailers to create and style complete looks with the touch of a button. "We're delighted to partner with Saks Fifth Avenue on the launch of Stylewhile, and to offer them full exclusivity at launch," said Stylewhile founder/CEO Jutta Haaramo. Both Stylewhile and Saks Fifth Avenue customers are women who love fashion and trying out …