Skyfire secures $13m to develop mobile browser

Mobile browser outfit Skyfire Labs has bagged an additional $13m in funding, according to Mobilecrunch.

Skyfire was founded two years ago with a mission to produce a “free, downloadable mobile browser that delivers rich web media”. The new $13m injection brings the total invested in the company to $17.8m. So far, though, all this money has got the Skyfire browser only to a first beta, and that’s an invitation-only affair. A second beta is in the works and would-be users can sign up to go onto a waiting list for the testing programme.

Skyfire is designed as a “game-changing” browser, reports Mobilecrunch. To this end, it is able to cope with aspects of the web that other mobile browsers don’t touch, including Flash and AJAX. However, when you consider Skyfire’s full sales patter – “A free, downloadable mobile web browser that makes browsing on your phone exactly like browsing on your PC. Now, you can use the web from your mobile phone with unprecedented speed and simplicity.” – it seems a bit of a pity that the company’s website is a Flash-fest that takes an age to load even on a fast desktop PC with a T1 connection. Sort it out, chaps.

[via Mobilecrunch]