Ki-Bi Mobile Technologies have just raised £10m ($19m) via institutional investors in London according to Globes Online.

That’s the boring bit out of the way, apart from that it’s a vote of confidence by professional investors, most of whom don’t know their mobile from their microwave.

[By the way, a little known fact about the launch of 3 is that it was the investors who insisted on structuring the whole launch around video calling. Management knew there was little demand for it. Not to mention that there was little point in focusing on your Achilles Heel. In order to make a video call, you need to know someone else who has one - so even if you believe in the concept, it's a definite Phase 2 part of the roll out.]

Anyway, Ki-Bi are an interesting company, as it happens. They make credit card sized cards (a bit like the old paybox phone cards) that make phone navigation a whole lot easier. You just take your card, put it next to the mike on the mobile and press the card in a specific place.

Then, hey presto, your phone goes and gets the content you want and downloads it. The content can be anything for your mobile, ranging from applications, ringtones, logos, games or music tracks.

From a content owner perspective, it’s a way of getting round the mobile operator portal, if you need to. Approximately 2/3 of mobile content is sold via the operators and if you can’t get on there for whatever reason, it makes life pretty difficult.

As important, the push and download angle means no clumsy inputting of WAP addresses, or navigating uninspiring menus, or even sending off a quick sms.

Is it a good long term bet? Despite my catty remarks about professional institutional investors (not having a go at VC’s here), I think it probably is. I can’t see mobiles being “easy” to navigate quickly, so if there’s a demand for the cards at distribution and user levels, there’s plenty of life in this yet.

And it stimulates inpulse purchase of content.

In the future, we’ll probably have voice commends for this kind of thing, but Ki-Bi are pretty well positioned to go after this sector as well, in due course.

Obviously, the big unknown at this point is what it costs to buy/distribute one. I’ve asked the question and will let you know if I find out.

So what do you think? Is Ki-Bi on to a winner?