ViVOtech is a company which produces software and hardware for the Near Field Communication

Near Field Communication

Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters. It is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States...

 (NFC) mobile payment and promotion market. Founded in 2001, it is based out of Santa Clara

Santa Clara, California

Santa Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. The company develops and produces technology designed to enable consumers to download their credit, debit, loyalty or prepaid cards as well as personalized coupons and location-based promotions to NFC mobile phones and use it to pay by just waving the phone at point of sale systems enabled with radio frequency contactless

Contactless

Contactless may refer to:* Contactless smart card* Proximity card, a contactless integrated circuit device used for security access or payment systems* Contactless payment, systems which use RFID for making secure payments...

 readers.

ViVOtech's products are used for contactless credit/debit cards, mobile phones, and key fobs payments in business such as retail stores and gas stations to vending machines and taxi cabs. ViVOtech's products have been put to use in 33 countries. ViVOtech has worked in collaboration with corporations such as Bank of America

Bank of America

Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...

, MasterCard

MasterCard

Mastercard Incorporated or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial services corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters, Purchase, Harrison, New York, United States...

, Discover

Discover Financial

Discover Financial Services is an American financial services company, which issues the Discover Card and operates the Discover and Pulse networks...

, Citibank

Citibank

Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...

, VISA

Visa

Visa or VISA may refer to:* Visa , a document issued by a country's government allowing the holder to enter or to leave that country...

, Chase

Chase (bank)

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase, is a national bank that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of financial services firm JPMorgan Chase. The bank was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until it merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2000...

, Sprint

Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...

, AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

, SingTel and Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

.

Products

ViVOtech has developed an end-to-end contactless/NFC payment and promotion solution that allow consumers to make payments with radio frequency-enabled credit cards, debit cards, key fobs, and NFC-enabled mobile phones. These solutions enable:

- Existing merchant systems to accept contactless card, fob of phone payments with minimum changes;
- Secure issuance of over the air (OTA) credit, debit, prepaid and loyalty cards to mobile phones;
- Targeted provisioning of coupons, promotions, loyalty and messages to mobile phones in a SPAM-free authenticated network;
- Next-generation contactless gift and loyalty programs based on contactless and OTA technology and intelligent transaction processing.

Hundreds of thousands of ViVOtech products are currently in use in over 35 countries and have been recognized with several industry awards.

ViVOpay

The ViVOpay readers are some of the secure contactless terminals available today. They are currently in use in movie theatres, fast food restaurants (QSR), casual dining establishments, convenience stores, petrol stations, grocery stores, buses, taxicabs, and vending machine locations. These devices are available for global contactless payment applications such as MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave, as well as specialized closed-loop payment, loyalty and promotions applications. The entire ViVOpay series is compatible with most POS and ECR systems.

Unattended / Self-Service:

ViVOtech also has a line of products for the unattended and self-service vertical markets. These "solutions" are for vending machine, drive through, kiosk, transit/turnstile, ticketing machine and parking meter type applications.

ViVOnfc

The ViVOnfc infrastructure software from ViVOtech allows companies to enable cell phones for use in mobile payment, marketing, and loyalty programs. This implements the use of near field communication technology (NFC) for payments, promotions and advertisements directly to close proximity cell phones (at the point of sale). ViVOtech has done close to 30 NFC mobile payments and promotion pilots in United States, Canada, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

ViVOnfc - ViVOwallet:
The ViVOwallet is a software application that runs on NFC mobile phones and allows consumers to securely download multiple soft-cards for credit/debit cards, coupons, and loyalty cards into their cell phones. This application allows cellular devices to make contactless payments, or redeem digital coupons via a contactless near field communication payment terminal.

ViVOnfc - Issuer Server:
The Issuer Server is the standalone server that allows a card issuer to provision a soft card to a ViVOwallet application running on an NFC-enabled phone. The Issuer Server, which is hosted in the card issuer network or a trusted party, holds all the personalization algorithms, features, functions, procedures, and interfaces for a card issuer. Additionally, it provides all the personalization data from the issuer back-office and is responsible for personalizing the ViVOwallet with all the required information for users to download the issuer’s cards, coupons, or tickets.

ViVOnfc - Control Server:
The Control Server provides the Over-the-Air (OTA) provisioning control function for the Mobile Network Operator. Mobile Operators use the Control Server to manage ViVOwallet applications residing on their NFC-enabled phones and connect to the Issuer Server supporting the card issuer backoffice systems.

ViVOplatform

The ViVOplatform software is composed of 2 modules that use contactless, NFC and mobile technologies to deliver new services and tools to merchants:

Gift and Loyalty Application:
The ViVOplatform Gift and Loyalty Application is the application software platform ViVOtech offers in order to process prepaid, loyalty, and promotion transactions, manage functionality, and gather customer statistics. This platform is browser-based for all users, including administrators, merchants, and consumers.

Smart Poster Management Software Application:
ViVOplatform Smart Poster Management Software Application is a one-on-one mobile marketing software system that enables merchants to send spam to consumers’ mobile phones. Smart posters are similar to traditional posters or billboards but contain one or more embedded NFC tags. By tapping a NFC enabled mobile phone on a smart poster a consumer is automatically connected to a backend content server over the wireless data network. The content server sends personalized and location based information back to the user based on the mobile phone number and NFC tag ID. Consumers can then view the content and redeem the promotions at participating merchants.

ViVOtag

The ViVOtag is offered in form of a sticker that can be attached to any convenient form factors such as card, key fobs, mobile phones or 3D images for efficient contactless payment transactions. These stickers can be used for prepaid transactions, credit, or loyalty products.

Corporate officers

Name	Title
Michael Mullagh	Chief Executive Officer
Mohammad Khan	President and Founder
Stuart J. Arnott	Chief Financial Officer
Greg McNeil	Sr. Vice President of Engineering

Investors

Capital Raised: ViVOtech raised an undisclosed amount in their last round of financing completed in February 2009. Investors in the firm include Alloy Ventures

Alloy Ventures

Alloy Ventures is a private equity firm focusing on early-stage venture capital investments in Life Sciences, Information Technology and Cleantech companies...

, Citigroup Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with affiliate offices in more than 30 cities around the world and over $7 billion in capital commitments....

, First Data

First Data

First Data Corporation is an American payment processing company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. First Data is a provider of electronic commerce and payment solutions...

 Corp., Miven Venture Partners, Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 Ventures, NCR

NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...

 Corp., Nokia

Nokia

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

 Growth Partners.

Awards and recognition

- ViVOtech receives the Frost and Sullivan North American Smart Cards Product Line Strategy of the Year Award - 2009
- ViVOtech named #1 in ABI Research

ABI Research

ABI Research is a marketing research firm based in New York. It was founded in 1990. The organization provides research on the following areas:* Mobile Devices, Networks and Services* Telematics & Navigation* Digital Home* Wireless Connectivity...

 Contactless & NFC Reader Ranking Report - 2008 and 2007
- ViVOtech chosen the Top Contactless Payment Technology Vendor in Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen Group Inc. is a provider of fact-based research helping organizations and individuals make better business decisions. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen Group tries to understand the implications and results of process innovation, methodology advancements, technology deployments, and business...

’s “Retail Contactless Payment Report” - 2007
- ViVOtech wins MasterCard “Best Vendor Partner Award" in the APAC region – 2006
- ViVOtech chosen as Frost & Sullivan’s “Electronic Payment Enabling Technology of the Year Award” – 2005.
- ViVOtech awarded the Electronic Transactions Association’s (ETA) first “Technology Innovation Award” – 2005.