Member Article

£3.3 million investment for Ashton-Under-Lyne’s Purple WiFi

Ashton-Under-Lyne’s Purple WiFi has secured £3.3 million investment.

The deal which was secured by the former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy will be used to aid its international expansion plans.

Purple WiFi allows users to gain free access to public WiFi network through their social media accounts.

Businesses gain useful analytics to see how customers interact with their business.

Purple WiFi’s social media authentication can be used with many networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Weibo and is available in 18 languages.

This latested investment round was handled by Ernst and Young with the legal work being done by Andrew Sturge, Partner at Turner Parkinson LLP in Manchester.

Sir Leahy said: “Having been in the retail space for many years, I have seen how technology has and will continue to revolutionise the industry.

“Purple WiFi is a brilliant example of how additional value can be driven from an existing infrastructure.

“I’ve been incredibly impressed with what Gavin and the team have achieved to date. I very much look forward to helping them drive global expansion and adoption.”

CEO, Purple WiFi CEO Gavin Wheeldon said “the big question in recent years has been how to monetise WiFi.

“Purple WiFi has created an innovative low cost solution that gives unprecedented analytics and insights, whilst driving true ROI for businesses.

“We have seen unimaginable interest and demand for the product, not just within the obvious sectors of retail, leisure and hospitality, but also unexpected sectors such as social housing, education and healthcare, where they want to use WiFi to communicate better and deliver services.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .