Jeff is a guest blogger for Mobile Monday. He is the former CEO of m-Qube and Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures.

Of course the Apple acquisition of Quattro Wireless is fantastic news for the Quattro team and its investors, but behind the headlines there is more worth noting. Over the past 5 years there have been countless number of mobile marketing/ mobile advertising companies created but few have been nearly as successful as Quattro. While there is always a bit of luck involved, Quattro had the team to be successful.

It always starts with team, and the Quattro folks are a super high quality bunch. Yes, the founders Eswar Priyadarshan, Andy Miller and Lars Albright are each rock star entrepreneurs, but it goes much deeper. A great senior team is able to recruit amazing talent all around them and the Quattro group is first rate across the board. From engineering to operations, from marketing and sales to product management to administration, the team is deep on domain expertise, driven to succeed and knows their disciplines. Together they knew the wireless ecosystem, had relationships to make progress quickly and equally importantly were skilled at executing in an entrepreneurial fashion.

Great teams are able to shake and bake, move left and right and find the opportunity. Like many successful startups, the final recipe for success is not usually where the company started. Quattro began with an idea to help carriers monetize their inventory with mobile advertising and quickly realized that serving the needs of tier one publishers with a combination of technology and sales would be a better model. The team had their eyes wide open, and like a good running back, saw a hole on the playing field and ran through it.

Being good is not enough, entrepreneurs need to be aggressive. I had the pleasure of working with many of the Quattro team during their previous successful business at m-Qube. These guys know how to get it done and go hard at making it happen. There has been great personal sacrifice made in the name of business accomplishment. In this competitive world, there is always competition ready to step up if you let your guard down. The Quattro team took the lead and never looked backed. They ran harder and smarter then the competition and deserve the victory that they achieved.

Cheers to the Quattro team! Congratulations to its investors who deserve much credit for believing early in the Quattro team and giving them the financial and board support needed to win. And congratulations to another successful wireless win for Boston. Quattro joins the ranks of companies like Starent, Airvana, Third Screen, Enpocket, m-Qube and of course many others. Let’s lift a glass to the Quattro gang for helping to keep Boston a hot spot for emerging wireless businesses. Hopefully companies like JumpTap, uLocate, Rave and Skyhook Wireless and others are right behind them.

Jeff Glass is a Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures where he focuses on early stage internet and wireless investments. He previously served as President & CEO of m-Qube, where he was responsible for the $250 million acquisition of m-Qube by VeriSign in 2006. Jeff has been voted Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” in New England and named to Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40″ list. Prior to m-Qube, Jeff was the co-founder of a number of other successful companies across internet, media and direct marketing. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Amherst College.

Today we’re beginning a new series of guest blog posts on Mobile Monday Boston. Most analysts are predicting 2010 to be a turning point for the mobile industry. There’s a tremendous amount happening in the mobile industry in Boston and we hope through this series to bring some new voices to you.

To kick off the series, we’ve invited Jeff Glass to comment on the Quattro acquisition. Having sold m-Qube to Verisign for $250 million, Jeff is in a unique position to talk about the recent acquisition of Quattro.

We kick off the new decade with some great news for Boston.

Andy, Eswar, and the rest of the team have been great friends of Mobile Monday over the years and we’re very happy about their success. Here’s some of the news on Quattro’s acquisition by Apple.

Official announcement from Quattro

Techcrunch

WSJ

Silicon Valley Mercury News

Boston.com

New York Times

Newsweek

GigaOm

Here are the presentations from last week’s event on mobile in emerging markets.

• Mobile Giving
• Assured Labor
• txteagle
• Moca
• MDNet
• Zaca
• Ruma

We used PollEverywhere to choose an audience choice award. The winner is Ruma!

Also a big thanks to Ted Chan and Itay Sharfi and MoMIT for their great work organizing this event.

Within the next three years, another billion people will begin to make
regular use of cell phones, continuing the fastest adoption of a new
technology in history (source: MIT Next Billion). Organizations such
as Grameen Phone have shown how mobile phones can provide a positive
impact in the developing world. In many regions, mobile phones provide
the first connectivity to the outside world and enable such diverse
services as: money transfer, medical record keeping, commodity price
updates, literacy education, and election monitoring.

Join some of the pioneers in this space as they discuss the challenges
and opportunities of using mobile phone technologies to improve
people’s lives throughout the world.

Time: Monday, November 16th, 6.30pm. Presentations lightning round
will start at 7pm.

Where: MIT Sloan, E51-115, Wang Auditorium – 2 Amherst St, Cambridge.
More information at http://bit.ly/eR4qs

Cost: Free, but you need to register at http://mobilesocial.eventbrite.com/

Mobile entrepreneurs: This event is for you! If you would like to have
a short pitch on how your company/organization is using mobile phones
to create social impact, please fill out your details at
http://bit.ly/m7Clz

Can carrier deals mint money for app developers?  Our October event will focus on monetization of Carrier and OEM App Stores.  We’ll examine the perspective of store front owners AT&T and RIM, and also get the point of view from app developers in the middle of a complex multi-party relationship.

Topic:  Mobile monetization from carrier and OEM storefronts?

Our speakers include:

Steve Krom (VP, AT&T)

Mike Kirkup (Sr Director, RIM),

Doug Hurd (Sr Director, uLocate)

Eric Weinberg (Sr Director, DeviceAnywhere)

Moderator: Todd Hixon (Founder, New Atlantic Ventures)

This event is made possible by our sponsors New Atlantic Ventures and DeviceAnywhere.

Time: Monday, October 19th. Doors open at 6.30pm, event starts at 7pm.

Location: The Place in Boston’s Financial District (map)

Click here to reserve your place now.

We’ll be co-hosting this event with The Capital Network.

Mobile Monday on a WEDNESDAY. Yes, we’re breaking all the rules. (The change is due to Yom Kippur).

Join us on WEDNESDAY, September 30th for a Mobile Monday Boston panel discussion on Mobile Advertising for apps and the mobile web. This event and its open bar is sponsored by GetJar, CommonAngels and Cooley.

Register now, please. 

Panelists Include:
Bill Scott – VP Sales and Business Development, GetJar
Andy Milller – CEO, Quattro Wireless
Jason Jacobs – Founder, Runkeeper
Seth Priebatsch – CEO, SCVNGR
Moderator: Shikhar Ghosh – Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School

Location: Boston Harbor Hotel
Date: WEDNESDAY (got it, Wednesday!) September 30th. Doors at 6:30 PM EST, event starts at 7 PM EST
Cost: Free – but registration is required to attend. Click here to register: http://momobostonsept09.eventbrite.com/
Cocktails: Provided
Parking: $29 at the hotel, cheaper parking by the Barking Crab, Courthouse, and Aquarium.
MBTA: South Station, Government Center, Aquarium

Join Mobile Monday on July 27th for a relaxed summer gathering on the deck of the Grand Canal.  Meet some mobile people.  See some demos.  Enjoy summer.  Cash bar.

Bring your mobile phone if you have something to demo.  We won’t have formal demo stations, but let us know in advance so we can post about it.

Time: 6 to 9 pm

Location: The Grand Canal, Boston, MA (map)

Transportation: Near Haymarket and North Station T stops (Orange line, Green line, and northern Commuter Rail lines)

Register now so we know you’re coming.

Be sure and stop by for a chance to win a free copy of iPhone Developer’s Cookbook by Erica Sadun, courtesy of the Voices That Matter: iPhone Developers Conference.

Hope to see you there.  Note:  We won’t be holding an August event, so the next Mobile Monday will be sometime in September.

Q2 2009 yielded a total of $81 million in investment for mobile companies based in and around Boston. A series of smaller investment rounds dominated Q2 as six out of seven companies receiving funding in Q2 raised less than $10 million from venture capitalists. While total investment declined from Q109 to Q209, VC funding increased from $39.4 million to $58.8 million.

Lilliputian Systems raised $28 million
Ember Corp. raised $8 million
Reva Systems raised $5 million
Convergence Inc was acquired for $22.8 million
Viximo raised $5 million
Azuki Systems raised $6 million
Celtra raised $1.2 million
Beaumaris Wireless raised $5.3 million

Notable mentions: E Ink’s $215 million sale to Prime View International is still pending, LogMeIn IPO in July raising $107 million, ending the IPO draught.

* This data & post was assembled by Amir Shaikh, Mobile Monday Boston’s summer intern.