Mobile email services used to be the domain of business executives. Now Swedish entrepreneur Roger Grönberg is bringing anywhere, anytime email to the masses – free of charge, writes Barry Mansfield

The Canadian company behind the Blackberry, Research in Motion, has long pitched its wireless device as the ultimate in mobile email, and record sales of €1.13bn in the third quarter of last year suggests founder Mike Lazaridis isn’t too worried just yet. But pricey, inflexible tariffs and configuration difficulties mean the Blackberry is unlikely to unlock the global market for mobile email, especially in emerging territories.

Enter Swedish start-up Momail, whose patent-pending software turns any data-enabled handset into a low-cost pseudo-Blackberry. The software squeezes sent messages into tiny files, shrinking the cost of sending by up to 90%.

Offering the download free, it’s not clear how Momail will make any money. Like so many tech start-ups with a brilliant idea, the strategy appears to be to build a global footprint at breakneck speed and then get bought – in other words, the model that netted Skype’s owners, headed by founder Niklas Zennström, €1.76bn when it was sold to eBay in 2005. On its website Momail answers the Frequently Asked Question: “How can it be free?” with: “The service will be financed through future premium services.”

In other words, Momail is a loss-making, cash-burning gamble. Yet it did not stop founder, ex-heavy metal star Roger Grönberg, picking up €3.79m in funding earlier this year. Investors include the Swedish 6th Pension Fund and Bonnier Invest, as well as individual investors from Sweden, England, Russia and South Africa.

Fast-talking, charming and articulate, Grönberg is a serial entrepreneur and strategist. He was the founder of Swedish outfit Memory and Storage Technology and vice-president of Euronet Online. Before that he spent time with the Malmo rock group Nasty Idols until 1994, when the band began to break up. A disillusioned Grönberg returned from the recording studios of LA to his native Sweden and found solace in a relatively sedate hobby from his teenage years – software design.