Press Coverage

Fresh off a $35 million round of funding, mobile payments company Boku is announcing a direct carrier agreement with Sprint that will allow Sprint customers to charge online purchases to their Sprint wireless bill through a two-step authorization process. The agreement was made possible via a partnership with mobile payments operator BillToMobile. As you may remember, Boku offers an online payments platform that allowed users to pay for online goods by charging the transaction to their mobile phone bill. When a user wants to purchase a virtual item, he can enter his cell phone number on a site, the site sends a text message to the phone, the user confirms the transaction with a short reply, and all the charges show up on his phone bill.

Today, the San Francisco company says that Sprint is coming on board to join the three other major U.S. carriers: Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile. While the partnership provides additional momentum for Boku, the company still has a way to go before consumers are charging all sorts of purchases to their carrier bills. Today, the majority of Boku-paid purchases are for digital goods, such as in-game currency like Facebook Credits, or virtual goods in social games from companies like Zynga.

Boku, the company that allows you to pay for online purchases with your mobile phone number, is announcing today it has signed a deal with Sprint, allowing it to process mobile payments with all of the major U.S. mobile phone carriers. That means that if you have a Sprint phone, you can buy things and bill them directly to your phone bill via Boku. San Francisco-based Boku is also announcing it has a mobile billing deal with Deutsche Telekom in Germany, said Ron Hirson, president and co-founder of Boku, in an interview with VentureBeat. That deal means that Boku will be processing transactions with every major carrier in Germany.

Boku, one of the leaders in carrier billing, has finally signed a direct billing deal with Sprint, giving it direct integration with all four major U.S. wireless operators. Sprint users will now be able to pay for goods online at merchants such as Electronic Arts, Riot Games, Gaia Online and others using Boku’s two-step authentication system. The deal helps complete Boku’s U.S. coverage after similar agreements with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Boku also announced that it has integrated with Deutsche Telekom in Germany, so it’s now handling direct billing with every major carrier in Germany, France and the UK. Users can place transactions on their cell phone bill with Boku by entering in their cell phone number and authorizing a purchase through a text message.

(Reuters) - Telefonica SA , Spain's largest phone company, is investing in Boku to help the mobile payments start-up expand. Telefonica Digital, the growth arm of the telecommunications giant, is participating in a $35 million funding round for Boku that also includes venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures, Boku said on Thursday. Boku, which started in 2008, has raised $75 million so far and operates in 67 countries through 250 mobile network operators.

Boku Inc., a service that lets consumers use mobile phones to make purchases, raised $35 million from Spain’s Telefonica SA (TEF) and other investors, helping the startup bolster its staff and continue expanding abroad. Telefonica Digital, a unit of the Spanish phone company, joined venture firm New Enterprise Associates in leading the financing round, San Francisco-based Boku said today in a statement. Existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures, also participated. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.