We are excited to announce that our company OnCell has acquired Authentic, a New Zealand-based company which develops My Tours and STQRY, a respected competitor in the mobile tour app technology space. As many of you may know, OnCell pioneered the first self-guided mobile tour platform for cultural sites and historic destinations, and allows organizations to offer their visitors immersive educational experiences using their smartphones and tablets. We have been a proud MANY partner and supporter through the years and are excited to offer members more options to create and support their mobile projects.

Over the past decade, OnCell and My Tours have both succeeded at building innovative mobile tour app technology solutions designed to meet the changing needs of museums, parks, attractions, cities, and historic sites of all sizes. With location-based mobile tour delivery, native and web apps, hands-free touring, gaming, and beacons, we both have consistently evolved our platforms as new technologies became available, furthering our commitment to provide cutting-edge products for our clients.

The acquisition strengthens OnCell’s position as a leader in the self-guided mobile tour app space, significantly increases our global presence, and expands our commitment to support hundreds of organizations in their efforts to engage and educate visitors.

OnCell was founded by entrepreneur Thomas Dunne, who has served as Chief Executive Officer and President since OnCell’s inception in 2006. Dunne, with over 25 years of experience in application development, telecommunications, and sales, has grown OnCell to a team of nearly 20 employees.

“This is an exciting time for OnCell. We are thrilled to add Authentic’s brands to our portfolio and welcome both their team and clients,” said Thomas Dunne. “Together, our innovative technologies will keep us ahead in the market, offering an unrivaled product and feature set.”

My Tours was founded by technologist Glen Barnes in 2009. In recent years, Barnes, worked to acquire two additional competitors, and formed Authentic as an umbrella company in 2016. Authentic currently powers three different platforms designed for the cultural and heritage space – My Tours, STQRY, and Curtis.

“We are delighted to be joining the OnCell team,” said Glen Barnes. “Our international client base along with OnCell’s strong US presence creates a powerful worldwide footprint and means we will achieve global scale quicker. The combined product suite will allow us to pick the best solution for our customers, from small museums to the world’s major cities. On a personal note, I am super excited to focus on continually enhancing our clients’ experiences, as Chief Product Officer of OnCell.” 

Dunne will remain President and CEO of OnCell and Barnes will continue to play a vital role in the new company structure as Chief Product Officer, working alongside Dunne on the leadership team, as well as managing a team of engineers. Dunne plans to keep the current My Tours team to support the New Zealand office.

“Our people are core to OnCell’s success. It is their expertise, desire to push boundaries, and passion to ship great products which allows us to expand our technology and keep us ahead in the market. We are elated to have Authentic’s team join our family,” added Dunne.

With Authentic’s portfolio of brands, OnCell can now provide even more services to support cultural and historic sites. In addition to mobile tours, with their platform Curtis, OnCell can now offer collection management tools and an innovative mobile app that allows anyone to discover educational content about fascinating destinations across the world.

Combined, we now power thousands of projects for our clients, delivering stories and interpretation to over ten plus million visitors this past year alone, across 19 countries, making it a clear leader in the mobile tour technology space. The new OnCell will continue to drive technology innovation while providing customers with best-in-class support for all of their platforms.

About OnCell

OnCell provides a full range of mobile tour technologies for museums, parks, and cultural destinations. With a variety of interactive services such as a DIY app builder, native and web apps, audio guides, beacon tours, and games, OnCell helps organizations become mobile-friendly. As mobile communication experts who are passionate about the arts, outdoors, and education, the OnCell team has worked on over 3,000 projects both in the U.S. and internationally since its inception in 2006. www.oncell.com

About Authentic

Authentic is passionate about creating mobile applications to help audiences explore, engage, and discover arts and culture in new ways. Powering three platforms which address the different needs of cultural and historic sites, Authentic empowers organizations to create their own mobile tour apps, searchable websites and kiosks for their collections, and provides the ability to share their stories via an innovative app which allows visitors to search all things arts and culture in their area. www.getauthentic.io