Earlier this morning, online music startup Spotify announced on its blog a new iPhone application.

There is a video showing how the application works and I must say it looks very promising. I think the killer feature will be the “Offline Playlists”  that will let you cache music while you have a wireless connection and then listen to it wherever you are.

Mobile access will only be available to premium members, so this will be a nice incentive for users who haven’t signed up for a paid plan yet. The iPhone app has just been submitted to the Apple app store and we’re all eager to see if it will be accepted.

Take a look at their demo:

Giant mobile phone producer Nokia announced today its plan of acquiring “certain assets” of social address book startup Cellity.

The Hamburg-based company was founded on october 2006 and develops an addressbook 2.0 that allows users to continuously update all their contacts from their phonebook, Outlook and social networks in order to always have them synchronized.

“Cellity has a very talented and innovative team, which we are very happy to have on board at Nokia. With this acquisition, we can accelerate our service development in some of our core areas,” said Christof Hellmis, Vice President, Services, Nokia.

Nokia essentially just bought the founding team, since the Cellity product offering will be discontinued soon.

“We are excited that Nokia has chosen our team and technology. With our experience from building social networking solutions, we can help Nokia further develop their services offering,” said Nils Weitemeyer, CEO of Cellity.

Looks like a really focused acquisition for Nokia, it is fair to assume that the team will work on their symbian platform (another nice aquisition by Nokia) on some new social features. The amount of the deal has not been disclosed.

Mobile payment and banking company Monitise announced yesterday a huge deal with credit cards giant Visa.

The Uk -based company has created the world’s first mobile banking networks, which allow customers of multiple banks and mobile operators to perform banking and payment transactions directly from their mobile handset.

The deal is comprised of a strategic and development partnership and is valued at £5.1 Millions. Visa International will own 14.4% of the enlarged issued share capital of Monitise. Visa will also be granted a seat on the advisory board, with the power to nominate a representative on the main board.

“With the ever expanding growth in handsets coupled with increasing sophistication of mobile networks, mobile payments and services present significant opportunity for Visa as we continue to develop new ways to bring the benefits of Visa electronic payments to more people in more places.” said Tim Attinger, Head of Global Product Innovation, Visa Inc. ”In aligning with Monitise, we expect to expand the delivery of Visa mobile services to consumers around the globe, enabling them to seamlessly use their mobile phones to purchase goods and services, make payments, receive valuable information and offers, and transfer money between accounts, in a safe and secure manner.”

The £5.1m raised, together with existing cash reserves of about £10m will provide Monitise with total cash of approximately £15m immediately following completion. That’s a lot of money in this economy, I think we will hear a lot more from them as they are also looking for more strategic partnerships in every continent.

Alastair Lukies, Chief Executive Officer, Monitise commented: ”Visa is the world’s most trusted, inclusive and innovative payments network. This alliance validates our unwavering commitment to building truly accessible, inclusive and reliable services over the past seven years. It is a landmark announcement in the mobile payment space and we are excited to collaborate with the world’s foremost payments company to accelerate the convergence of payments services and mobile devices.”

“We are also proud to welcome Tim Attinger to our Advisory Board; his deep payments and mobile expertise will make him a valued member to our key contributing body.” Lukies concluded.

The guys over at Smarta have got a nice interview with Lukies.

IT-focused vehicle Notion Capital has led an undisclosed investment into mobile voice solutions provider Cellcrypt, alongside existing investors.

Cellcrypt provides end-to-end, real-time encryption to protect conversations from being compromised without the need for specialised equipment or expensive new infrastructure. Their product, available for Windows Mobile and Nokia phones, is now supporting Blackberries too.
Notion Capital, the investment firm set up by founders and senior executives from successful internet security company MessageLabs which was sold to Symantec in 2008 for $695M, took part in the round alongside former investors. The additional funding will be used to further expand Cellcrypt’s international presence, following the recent opening of its US office.

“We are really excited to invest in Cellcrypt, as a company with ground-breaking technology and a compelling proposition in a currently under-served market” said Stephen Chandler, partner at Notion Capital. “Traditionally, high security voice calling has only been available using specialised military-specification equipment, but Cellcrypt now makes this easily accessible to all with no impact on service performance.”
Stephen Chandler, a founding partner at Notion Capital and former President, EMEA and CFO at MessageLabs, will join the Cellcrypt Board.

Chandler continued, “Cellcrypt is ahead of the market in delivering unmatched voice call quality, international calling capability and high reliability across wireless networks, using standard devices and infrastructure. We believe that Cellcrypt is well placed to lead this fast growing market and that we have highly relevant skills and experience across the Notion team to help them to execute successfully.”

“Most governments and corporates now secure their email – voice is the last unsecured data service,” said Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO at Cellcrypt. “Cellcrypt has demonstrated product leadership and this funding supports the company’s growth internationally from the Americas, across Europe to the Middle East and Asia. I am delighted to welcome Stephen to the Board of Cellcrypt and look forward to working closely with him and the other industry experts at Notion Capital to benefit from their unique combination of knowledge and experience in this sector.”