Newtown Resident Backs Tech Startup that Brings Reliable WiFi to Local Retailers

John Patrick of Danbury and Dan Ohlson of Newtown have backed a technology startup in Lahore, Pakistan

Patrick met Bilal Athar, a young entrepreneur through an online technology forum. He was quite impressed with Athar’s vision for creating a company focused on coffee shops, cafes, small hotels, and other retailers. Brick and mortar retailers are at a disadvantage versus online retailers who have so many digital tools to connect with their customers. 

Athar’s startup, Wifigen, promised to make the retailer’s WiFi service more reliable and manageable and, at the same time, ask the customers for an email address in return for the free WiFi. Wifigen proved the technology in Pakistan and more than three million people used a public version of the software. Patrick, formerly VP of Internet Technology at IBM and an investor in a number of startup companies was convinced and invested in the company. A few years later, Dan Ohlson, a technology executive, joined Patrick as an investor in the startup.

Wifigen refined its strategy for the U.S. market, and Patrick and Ohlson established Wifigen as a U.S. company based in Delaware, Wifigen LLC. The potential is significant since there are millions of small U.S. retailers such as coffee shops, gyms, hotels, pubs, etc. which offer free WiFi to their customers. However, the proprietors are blind to how many of their customers use it and who uses it. A pilot installation in Northeast
Pennsylvania has had more than 16,000 customers log in through Wifigen. New users are automatically captured into the retailer's marketing communications database so the proprietor can proactively engage with their customers either manually or through
Wifigen’s automation features.

Athar, Patrick and Ohlson decided to raise $250,000 to fund the company well into next year to build out the product offering and put a U.S. effort in place to acquire and support customers. To raise the money, Wifigen will be using a new crowdfunding platform called Wefunder. Instead of a few angel investors making large investments, Wefunder enables a large number of investors to make small investments. 

The crowdfunding approach was introduced as part of the Jobs Act 3.0 which the House passed 406 to 4 in 2018. Wifigen filed the Form C (C for crowdfunding) documentation with the SEC on Wednesday night and the official fundraising has begun. Anyone can
participate.

Take a look at https://wefunder.com/wifigen and you can see a video of Athar, Patrick, and Ohlson explaining the strategy, plus a lot of information about what Wifigen is and how it works, why it can be a good investment, what are the risks, and how to invest as little as $250 or thousands.

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Submitted by Newtown, CT

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