VoIP Monitor - Investments

Voip-Pal.Com Reduces Debt By 30%

VoIP Monitor — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:46:17 GMT

Voip-Pal.Com is pleased to announce that it has reduced the company's overall debt by nearly 30%. This reduction will be reflected in the company's fiscal year end financials of September 30, 2011.

Voip-Pal will resume operations after having limited its sales until the new retail website, www.pointsphone.com, has been upgraded and redesigned. An updated and newly improved corporate website for investors is also forthcoming with a scheduled launch later this week.

Voip-Pal products and services include international VoIP telephone services for as low as 1 to 2 cents per minute. Users can download Apps on their smartphones including iPhones or Androids. Voip-Pal's state-of-the-art antivirus program, PointsPhoneGuard™, is bundled for free when users purchase the Platinum Suite™ for $29.95. Users will be able to register on www.pointsphone.com upon its relaunch.

"The reduction of our debt before our fiscal year end is extremely important for our future plans. Moving forward, we are focused on our revenue producing operations and anticipate further debt reduction before our fiscal year end, September 30th," states Dennis Chang, President of Voip-Pal. "While we're preparing the launch of our redesigned website to enhance our revenue potential, we want to thank all of our loyal shareholders for their patience and perseverance during this rebuilding period."

Pervasip Initiates Buyout of Convertible Debt Instrument

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:43:41 GMT

Pervasip has sent notice to an investor to buy out a convertible debt instrument, which allows the investor to convert approximately $100,000 of debt into common stock at a 45% discount to market. Pervasip has also converted $224,000 of debt on its balance sheet into common stock, at a price of $0.08 per share.

The company's transfer agent reports that total shares outstanding as of June 16, 2011 are 46,601,463, 3,690,154 of which are in certificate form and 42,911,309 are held in brokerage accounts. A total of 43,175,587 are considered free trading shares.

CounterPath Announces Closing of Private Placement

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:43:35 GMT

CounterPath has raised gross proceeds of CDN$5,505,150 (US$5,636,170) by way of a brokered private placement (the "Offering") of units ("the Units") at a price of CDN$1.75 per unit and entered into commitments for the early exercise of outstanding warrants providing for further proceeds of US$1,500,000.

Under the private placement, each Unit consists of one common share (each, a "Unit Share") and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each whole Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one additional common share (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of CDN$2.25 per Warrant Share for a period of two years from the closing of the Offering.

The Company paid broker commissions of CDN$385,361 equal to seven percent (7%) of the funds raised in the Offering and issued 220,206 broker warrants (the "Broker Warrants") equal to seven percent (7%) of the number of Units sold in the Offering, with each Broker Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one common share (each, a "Broker Share") at an exercise price of CDN$1.75 per Broker Share until December 14, 2012.

In addition, the Company entered into warrant exercise agreements with two insiders that have agreed to exercise an aggregate of 1,666,668 warrants they acquired on October 29, 2009 on or before July 29, 2011, prior to the expiry of the warrants on October 29, 2011. When exercised, the proceeds to the Company will be US$1,500,000.

In addition, all of the outstanding convertible debentures of the Company in the aggregate principal amount of US$1,464,800 were converted on the closing of the Offering with a total of 1,332,261 common shares being issued to the holders. As a result of the conversion, the Company does not have any convertible debt.

The net proceeds received by CounterPath from the Offering will be used to expand sales and marketing efforts, working capital, and general corporate purposes.

CounterPath has agreed to use its best commercially reasonable efforts to file, and keep effective, a resale registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the Unit Shares, Warrant Shares and Broker Shares sold in the Offering.

The Unit Shares, Warrants, Warrant Shares, Broker Warrants and Broker Shares issued, or issuable, will be subject to hold periods expiring on October 15, 2011 under Canadian laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, and will also be subject to hold periods under United States securities laws. None of the securities issued have been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act"), and none of them may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State where such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful.

Voip-Pal.com Starts Process of Elevating to Current Information Tier on OTC Pink Sheets

VoIP Monitor — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:00:39 GMT

Voip-Pal.com announces that it has started the process of upgrading its OTC Markets Tier to "OTC Pink Current Information".

"We have started the process to elevate our status on the OTC Markets to the next level," states Dennis Chang, President of Voip-Pal. "and we anticipate the process will be completed by the end of this month. Achieving the Current Information Tier with OTC Pink will provide a significant beneficial impact on our Company as well as our Shareholders. Shareholders will have access to comprehensive information on the financial results from the Company's operations. In addition, Shareholders will have access to disclosures relating to the Company's financial policies. Once we achieve this major milestone to become current all existing and new Investors will have the ability to evaluate and follow the growth and progress of their investment with greater transparency."

"Voip-Pal's goal has been to be a major participant and contributor in the smartphone and VoIP revolution," adds Mr. Chang. "As a public entity, our mission must also include the best interests of our Shareholders. By elevating to Current Information Tier, our Company will have greater value and transparency for our investors. According to OTC Markets, the Current Information Tier has over 45 million in average dollar volume which is over 3 times the level of the Limited Information Tier! We are laying the foundation to become a significant revenue generating company in the VoIP and smartphone industry. By preparing to achieve the new Tier by the end of this month, we will soon enable new and existing investors to trade and grow our common stock with much greater liquidity and value by opening the doors for more broker dealers and larger brokerage firms."

To preview Voip-Pal's new PointsPhoneGuard Ad on You Tube, please click on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fha6g4x5QFc

NetCapital Converts Portion of Pervasip Debt into Common Stock

VoIP Monitor — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:10:13 GMT

Pervasip announced that NetCapital.com has completed a conversion of debt into common stock. NetCapital converted $148,522 of debt into 594,088 shares of common stock, a conversion rate of $.25 per share.

Pervasip's Chief Executive Officer, Paul Riss, noted, "We signed a securities settlement agreement with NetCapital, which allowed them to convert some of the debt they purchased, in a previous transaction, from our principal lender. We view this settlement agreement as a favorable indicator of the direction we are pursuing with NetCapital."

NetCapital has a signed agreement with Pervasip's principal lender to purchase all of its outstanding debt.

fring Fuels Mobile Video Communication with C-round Funding

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:35:48 GMT

fring announces closing its C-round of financing. The new financing will expedite fring's unrelenting mobile innovations and bring fring's fun video communication suite to a slew of new devices and segments of users.

fring's new financing complements fring's primary revenue engines, fringOut and advertising, which are contributing at a rate of $10 million annually.

"Time and again, our team has shown it has the innovative edge to deliver ground-breaking, consumer communication experiences." Said Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring. "This is how our young team has won tens of millions of users, bringing the world's 1st unrestricted mobile voice over IP, the 1st mobile Video over IP, and just last month, the 1st mobile Group Video over IP. And we're just getting started."

Shechter continued, "With the additional fuel injection from our visionary industry investors, in addition to our independent revenue streams, fring will re-double the rate at which we make fun, new ways we can all communicate, across any mobile platform."

Current investors participated in this round including North Bridge Venture Capital, Pitango Venture Capital & Veritas Venture Partners.

"fring is revolutionizing mobile communication. They are the clear technical leader and have a track-record of delivering addictive mobile experiences, building a compelling brand while delivering aggressive revenue growth." Said Jamie Goldstein, General Partner from Boston based North Bridge Venture Partners. "fring is now the leading pure play in this explosive mobile IP communication space."

fring offers free mobile Group Video calls, Video calls, calls & live chat on all major Smartphones on any connectivity (3G,4G, WiFi). With fringOut, fring users can also call any regular phone worldwide, starting from 1c/minute.

NetCapital Signs Agreement to Buy Out Pervasip's Lender

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:44:35 GMT

Pervasip Corp. announced that a strategic investor, NetCapital.com, has signed an agreement with Pervasip's lender to purchase all outstanding debt.

NetCapital's Chairman, John Fanning, noted, "We have a track record of success with disruptive technologies, and Pervasip's technology is a true example of how game-changing vision and wisdom can be forged into a paradigm-breaking commercial product. We have been following Pervasip for years, waiting for the right opportunity to partner and invest. Today we have found a time of great value."

"We are pleased to have a friendly investor who wants to work with us to build value for our shareholders," said Paul Riss, Pervasip's Chief Executive Officer. "At this point in time, our original lender can no longer foreclose on our assets."

Pervasip, which operates in the mobile VoIP arena and recently became a carrier for video VoIP telephone services, received orders last week for more than 300 video VoIP lines and is now the carrier for Bausch & Lomb's video phones. The Company believes it will see significant growth as a service provider for video phones, as it is in contract with a person-to-person marketing company to sell its services.

"We are eager to bring additional technologies to Pervasip," added Fanning. "Not all VoIP is created equal, and we have found the VoIP network at Pervasip to be of superior quality and reliability. We therefore plan to combine it with other technologies, such as wireless spectrum, so Pervasip can fully take advantage of the world-wide mobile Internet revolution."

Fanning continued, "Microsoft's purchase of Skype is a significant validation of the mobile VoIP space. We believe there is great value in Pervasip and that we can unlock that value for investors."

netTALK.COM Secures $1.5 Million of Additional Funds

VoIP Monitor — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:38:37 GMT

netTALK.COM announced that it has obtained additional funding up to $1,500,000. These borrowings are the last stage in a series of funding rounds pursuant to a promissory note agreement.

“This round of funding from our primary investor is particularly useful to us as we gear up to sell the netTALK DUO with additional major bricks and mortar and online retail outlets," said Anastasios "Takis" Kyriakides, Chairman and President of netTALK. "It will also help us further ramp up our marketing efforts and sales of the netTALK DUO, enabling more and more consumers to say ‘Goodbye’ to their phone company, forever.”

netTALK.Com Procures $2.5 Million in Additional Funding

VoIP Monitor — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:22:59 GMT

netTALK.COM has obtained additional funding up to $2,500,000 in borrowings pursuant to a promissory note agreement.

"The new funding will be used to further grow the company, focusing on sales and marketing, expansion of the DUO telecommunications network, and supporting services and products."

"We are most appreciative of the continuing confidence placed in us by our core investor, who continues to support the implementation of our business," said Anastasios "Takis" Kyriakides, Chairman of netTALK. "The new funding will be used to further grow the company, focusing on sales and marketing, expansion of the DUO telecommunications network, and supporting services and products."

Skype Files Registration Statement for IPO

VoIP Monitor — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:52:11 GMT

Skype has filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its ordinary shares. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated will be the joint global coordinators as well as joint book-running managers for the offering. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities LLC and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. will also be acting as joint book-running managers. Lazard Capital Markets LLC, RBC Capital Markets Corporation and UBS Securities LLC will be acting as joint lead co-managers; Allen & Company LLC and Evercore Group LLC will be acting as co-managers for the offering.

When available, a copy of the preliminary prospectus may be obtained from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, via telephone: +1 866 471 2526, via facsimile: +1 212 902 9316, or by e-mail: prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com; from J.P. Morgan Securities Inc.; c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, Attn: Prospectus Department, or by telephone +1 866 803 9204; from Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated Attention: Prospectus Department, via telephone: +1 866 718 1649, 180 Varick Street, Second Floor, New York, NY 10014, or by e-mail: prospectus@morganstanley.com.

A registration statement relating to the securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. The securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of, the securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such state or jurisdiction.

Vopium Gets Capital Injection of $16.5 Million

VoIP Monitor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:23:25 GMT

Vopium's economic foundation is now secured so that the company can keep expanding internationally. The Indian investor, Raghuvinder Kataria, has with his own investment company invested $16.5 million in the Danish company and he now owns the majority of the shares in Vopium.

Vopium was established in Copenhagen by a group of people spearheaded by Tanveer Sharif. It was originally intended for immigrants who were looking for cheap telephony solutions to get in contact with family and friends in distant countries. This target group has since been expanded to all people and companies who want to make cheap international phone calls. With a software program installed on their mobile phone, users can make very cheap calls, e.g. from Denmark to the US for only $ 0,02 per minute, and with the same quality as that provided by traditional phone companies. One million users have already installed Vopium on their mobile phone and 250,000 users in 49 countries are using the solution.

With Vopium, the users do not have to change their phone company or be located at the computer to save on expensive phone calls. Besides international calls and texts, Vopium offers its users free calls to each other and the ability to communicate with friends on Skype, GTalk, MSN, Twitter, Facebook, etc, directly from their mobile phone.

Raghuvinder Kataria was one of the early investors in Bharti Tele-Ventures, together with Sunil Bharti Mittal. Today the company is called Bharti Airtel and is one of the world's largest mobile companies.

VocalTec Receives Order of Around $1M from Russian Tier-1 Operator

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:25:07 GMT

VocalTec announces that one of Russia’s leading tier-1 operators selected VocalTec’s Large-Scale Class-5 solution as its core platform for the delivery of VoIP subscriber services.

The initial order, representing the first stage of the deployment, includes the delivery of VocalTec’s Essentra BAX Large-Scale Class-5 solution supporting over 100,000 subscribers. The system is dimensioned to provide service to a much larger user base in support of the customer’s future expansion plans.

The deployment includes an extensive set of applications, and allows the customer to seamlessly migrate his network to an all IP infrastructure and provide his end-users with the latest in IP telephony services.

Voxeo Corporation Announces Strategic Investment

VoIP Monitor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:12:37 GMT

Voxeo Corporation announces a $9 million minority investment by North Atlantic Capital and the Florida Growth Fund. Voxeo will use the funds to take advantage of rapidly growing opportunities in Unlocked Communications, including VoIP platforms, Interactive Voice Response, text and instant messaging, and unified communications, both by accelerating internal development and through corporate acquisitions. Voxeo has acquired three companies over the last 14 months.

This is the first investment made by the Florida Growth Fund, a $250 million partnership between the State Board of Administration of Florida and Hamilton Lane. Hamilton Lane is one of the leading private equity asset managers worldwide, with over $88 billion under management and supervision. The Florida Growth Fund was created in 2009 as a result of the passage of Florida State Bill 2310 with the goal of investing in technology and growth-based businesses in the State of Florida.

North Atlantic Capital is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping strong teams accelerate the growth of their expansion-stage, technology-based companies. North Atlantic Capital found and identified Voxeo as a high quality investment opportunity in 2007 and in addition to leading the investment, introduced Voxeo and the Florida Growth Fund. Concurrent with the investment, Mark Morrissette, Managing Director of North Atlantic Capital, has joined Voxeo’s board of directors.

Voxeo is an employee-owned company with headquarters in Orlando, Florida and offices in Beijing, Cologne, London and Silicon Valley. In 2009, Voxeo was named one of the 100 best places to work in Florida. Voxeo's offerings include:

Prophecy Interactive Voice Response and Unified Self Service platform helps enterprises and service providers automate their most common customer and employee interactions via phone, SMS, IM, Twitter, mobile web and more.
VoiceObjects Application Server helps enterprises and service providers design, create, deploy, manage, and analyze personalized self-service applications.
Micromethod VoIP platforms and solutions help enterprises and service providers deploy highly-scalable, customizable infrastructure for VoIP solutions.
IMified technology delivers a web service that enables applications to interact with any text messaging network, including SMS, IM, Twitter, Facebook, and more.

All of Voxeo's products and services are available as both an on-premise, traditional software license and as on-demand, hosted, Software as a Service solutions.

Telesphere Closes Additional Funding, Totals $32 Million Over 2 Year Period

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:57:40 GMT

Telesphere announces the closing of additional financing, totaling $32 million over the past 24 months. The funding news comes on the heels of Telesphere’s July announcement that it would acquire the VoIP services business of Denver-based Unity Business Networks. The acquisition has now closed after receiving FCC approval.

Telesphere also announced that Unity CEO Bob Paulsen has taken on the role of Telesphere’s Chief Operating Officer.

Telesphere will continue to be headquartered in Phoenix with a major presence in Denver. The company will house several executive functions in Colorado and expects to double its employee presence there within six months.

Telesphere backers include several premier telecommunications investors including: Rally Capital, Hawkeye Investments and The Greenspun Corporation.

XConnect Raises $10 Million in Series B Funding

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:45:07 GMT

XConnect raises $10 million in Series B funding. A consortium of investors, including Venrock Associates, Accel Partners, Grazia Equity and Crescent Point Group, participated. The financing will enable London-based XConnect to continue expanding its "Interconnect 2.0" portfolio, which includes Carrier ENUM-registry and multimedia interconnection hub services.

Interconnect 2.0 offers the most comprehensive suite of services to meet operators' growing needs to efficiently deliver new revenue-generating multimedia services, such as high-definition voice and video, across IP networks, while increasing service quality and reducing costs.

XConnect operates the largest worldwide ENUM-based IP-peering federation, the Global Alliance, and the world's first national VoIP and NGN interconnection federations, in the Netherlands and Korea.

"This investment by Tier 1 venture capital firms during challenging economic times is a strong endorsement of federated interconnection and demonstrates belief in XConnect's Interconnect 2.0 strategy for driving migration from the PSTN to next-generation IP communications," said XConnect Chairman Ohad Finkelstein. "The global reach of our investors underscores their grasp of our company's worldwide impact and growing international prospects."

Eli Katz, XConnect CEO and founder, added: "The new funding is perfectly timed. The rapid global market adoption of NGN and VoIP infrastructure by fixed, mobile and Web 2.0 operators, together with the need to deploy rich multimedia communication services across networks, is driving demand for our next-generation interconnection and ENUM services."

In related news, XConnect announced that Torsten Kreindl, a partner at Grazia, and David Hand, a partner and managing director at Crescent Point, will join its board of directors. Before entering the international venture investment field, Kreindl, currently a Swisscom director, served as CEO of Deutsche Telekom's broadband cable business. Hand brings experience in emerging markets from a corporate-finance perspective, developed at Crescent Point and Morgan Stanley, and specializes in Asia-Pacific investments.

"We are enthused to be contributing to the continuing growth of XConnect - an innovative pioneer that is uniquely primed to ride the NGN wave and promote the transition to all-IP communications," Hand said. "We are particularly impressed by XConnect's track record in Asia, where its establishment of the first Korean IP-peering federation signifies leadership and points to expansion in emerging markets."

Telesphere Announces More Than $15 Million in New Funding

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:19:39 GMT

Telesphere has successfully closed on more than $15 million in additional private equity funding. The funds will be used to continue the company’s market build and acquisition-based expansion plans into multiple new markets by 2010. The round of funding includes participation of current Telesphere investors, including Rally Capital, Hawkeye Investments LLC and Greenspun Corporation. The company was represented in the financing by Snell and Wilmer, LLP.

Telesphere has partnered with industry leaders to develop its IP phone and Internet services offerings aimed at the Hosted VoIP and Managed IP PBX marketplace. Telesphere supports a wide range of IP PBXs, and recently announced it had joined a short list of certified Microsoft Response Point Service Providers, allowing Telesphere to integrate its own unique service features with Microsoft’s Response Point telephone product. Industry experts have estimated the overall market for Hosted VoIP and Managed IP PBX has grown by 52 percent to $24 billion since 2007, and predict strong double-digit growth through at least 2011.

Telesphere’s services provide a smarter and more efficient way of communicating by offering many features integrating business telephony, computing and mobile devices. For example Telesphere offers customers:

The ability for simultaneous ring of office and cell phones
Seamless handoff between cell phone and office phone
Web click-to-dial from computers
Visual voice mail to email and fax to email
Telesphere Anywhere that provides customers spread across multiple offices throughout the country, from small business, medium business, and even home business, the ability to function seamlessly as if they were in the same location with four-digit dialing and local calling.

deltathree Secures Additional Working Capital

VoIP Monitor — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:28:41 GMT

deltathree has successfully negotiated the release of cash previously securing letters of credit held by its landlord and different suppliers. Yesterday, the company executed an agreement with the landlord and subtenant of its offices at 75 Broad Street, New York, N.Y., to release the letter of credit securing the company's obligations under the lease, and to terminate the lease. Along with the recently-negotiated release of other letters of credit held by suppliers of the company, the amount of net cash that the company is expected to imminently receive will be approximately $750,000, based on funds that were restricted as of September 30, 2008, which will provide the company additional short-term capital liquidity to fund its operations.

InterAct911 Completes $28 Million in Financing

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:28:01 GMT

InterAct911 has closed on a $28 million equity round of capital led by new investors Foundation Capital and Bay Partners, joining existing investor SilkRoad Equity. Plans for the current round of capital include a significant expansion of InterAct’s worldwide direct sales and marketing efforts, strategic acquisitions and new product development. Warren Weiss, general partner of Foundation Capital, and Eric Chin, general partner of Bay Partners, will join the company’s board of directors.

InterAct is the leading provider of comprehensive public safety and homeland security solutions for private sector businesses, as well as local, state, national and international government agencies. InterAct’s suite of mission critical applications include a Next Generation 911 phone system; multi-agency, scalable computer aided dispatch, mapping and mobile data sharing systems; as well as digital video surveillance and emergency notification systems.

InterAct is poised for significant growth with high demand for versatile and adaptive Next Generation 911 systems. Warren Weiss, general partner at Foundation Capital who also joins InterAct’s board of directors, believes the public safety industry is reaching a tipping point with the development of public safety networks that will enable Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) to take advantage of virtual consolidation. “InterAct is uniquely qualified to serve the needs of the evolving market trends. We are excited to back one of the clear leaders in the industry and help continue to drive their rapid growth,” said Weiss.

LiveVox Increases IT Capacity and Company Growth

VoIP Monitor — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:35:29 GMT

LiveVox has continued investment into its information technology infrastructure, increasing its already robust capacity by more than 50% in the past six months to maintain its solid standard of customer reliability.

LiveVox also announced it increased its customer base in the credit and collections industry by 84% in the third quarter of 2008, compared to the corresponding quarter last year, as it continues to focus on the third-party collections market.

LiveVox is the first to deliver a Hosted VoIP Dialer that operates on secure, private networks that directly access the carrier backbone using a SIP interface. This allows LiveVox to offer hosted-dialing services with unlimited capacity, higher quality and lower cost than premised-based or other hosted-dialing solutions. Other hosted solutions use either the public Internet or a hybrid of VoIP and analog protocols.

Bolstering an already industry-leading, carrier-grade infrastructure, LiveVox has sufficient computing capacity to meeting current and future client demand. The company has increased overall dialing capacity by more than 50% with the following steps:

Integrated the LiveVox Hosted VoIP Dialer directly into additional telephony carriers;
Increased its investment in servers and other hardware to facilitate greater call volumes;
Upgraded network infrastructure to take advantage of increased bandwidth and improved response times.

Nimbuzz Raises $15 Million in Second Round Funding

VoIP Monitor — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:16:23 GMT

Nimbuzz raises $15 million Second Round funding. The new round of funding was led by Naspers/MIH with Nimbuzz's other major existing investor Mangrove Capital Partners also participating. Nimbuzz will use this latest funding to continue to develop its product offering into the most comprehensive and user friendly application for the widest range of handsets, across multiple IM and Social Network communities and in any country.

Founder and CEO Evert Jaap Lugt commented: "We are actively working on strategic distribution deals with leading social networks and mobile operators. It is our aim to blend our technology with existing mobile internet access to upgrade the value chain for business and consumers alike. Operators understand the need for services like Nimbuzz which provide traffic and drive the demand for mobile data plans, an ever more important revenue stream."

Deals with 10 major social networks and 3 operators are already on the table. The extent of the Nimbuzz product portfolio to date has confirmed the investors' confidence in the companies' potential to stay on top of technology advancements and in turn become an integral part of day to day mobile and internet communication.

The continued introduction of flat rate mobile data plans provided by operators across Europe is a sure sign of the importance of mobile internet services to the future communications industry. Analysts such as IDC suggest VoIP will lead the communication evolution and predict that there will be around half a billion worldwide personal IP communications subscribers by 2012. With the benefit of this latest funding Nimbuzz will continue to capitalise on this market opportunity and build important win-win relationships with forward-thinking operators and strategic partners across the world.

Nimbuzz has grown rapidly and now employs 70 people. It has opened offices in Argentina and Brazil, where it has partnered with Abril, the largest media company in the country. With the benefit of this latest funding the team will work to extend Nimbuzz's reach to other platforms including Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android and will implement additional social and presence-based features to its clients. Announcements on these and other developments are expected later this year.

In 2007 Nimbuzz raised $10 million in funding, led by Mangrove Capital Partners with investments from Naspers / MIH Group and Holtzbrinck Ventures. This money was used for the development of the current product offering, which allows users who download Nimbuzz access to free mobile VoIP calling, conference calling, instant messaging, chat and group chat, as well as photo and file sending across multiple IM communities (including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ). It also offers a widget which provides voice to 23 social networks, including Facebook and MySpace - all from a single application.

The genuine Nimbuzz mobile VoIP works worldwide on Symbian Series 60 devices when connected using a 3G or Wifi network. However users with only a GPRS/EDGE connections, or using Java-enabled phones, can also make international mobile VoIP calls using the Nimbuzz "hybrid-VoIP" solution (as used by other providers like Truphone and Skype) - for making international mobile calls at local dial-in cost - in as many as 50 countries. Impressively, the development that has already gone into Nimbuzz means it works on more than 500 handsets worldwide.

Jaxtr Raises $10M, Out of Network Calling

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:53:52 GMT

Jaxtr introduces the freedom for members to call anyone in the world on their mobile phone without the worry of a huge bill, the hassle of calling cards, or downloading software to their mobile phone. In addition to the ability to make free in-network calls, jaxtr members can now call anyone in the world from their mobile phone for substantially less than the rates charged by most calling cards. In addition, members can make calls with the convenience of direct-dial numbers, which eliminate the hassle of access and PIN numbers required by calling cards. Jaxtr is currently used by more than 10 million users in 220 countries.

$10 Million Series B: Jaxtr also announces the completion of $10 million in Series B financing, a round led by new investor Lehman Brothers Venture Partners. “Jaxtr’s market potential is extraordinarily large as the company is able to acquire millions of customers per month without spending any money on marketing. And it succeeded in monetizing its offering within 16 months of launch through two revenue streams, first advertising and now premium services,” said Ben Boyer, partner at Lehman Brothers.

More Powerful Jax Credits: In jaxtr 1.5, members can now use their credits, called “jax,” to call non-members. And when members run out of jax, they can now purchase more in order to meet all of their international calling needs. Since the company has grown to over 10 million users purely by word of mouth and enjoys a healthy advertising revenue stream, jaxtr can profitably offer the best rates in the business:

Canada: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
China: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
India: 6 jax/minute ($.06)
United Kingdom: 1 jax/minute ($.01)
United States: 1 jax/minute ($.01)

New Premium Memberships: Active members will now have the opportunity to earn access to new premium features, such as customizable contact pages, enhanced digital voicemail features and higher allotments of free international SMS per month. Additionally, active members will continue to receive free jax, which now can be used to call any number worldwide.

The Jaxtr Difference: Jaxtr helps users’ link their phones to the Web to connect with friends worldwide, control their calls and talk at great low rates from any phone. With a personalized jaxtr link, members enjoy many benefits:

Community: Meet new people online, with whom you can actually talk, in café jaxtr.
Cost Savings: Bypass expensive international phone charges and send free international SMS.
Control: Forward in-bound calls to any phone, get PrivacyShieldTM to keep your number private and a global voicemail box online.
Convenience: Place a call from any mobile or landline phone. No need to download software to your mobile phone or to have an Internet connection to make a call.

RingCentral Secures $12 Million, Passes 50,000 Customer Milestone

VoIP Monitor — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:48:14 GMT

RingCentral has closed its series B funding, raising $12 million from new lead investors DAG Ventures and NCD Investors and returning investors Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures. RingCentral also announced that it surpassed 50,000 active customer accounts, doubling its customer base in one year. Accounts range from one to many subscribers, typically in small businesses with 20 or fewer employees.

The company will use the new funding to enhance its products and services, build new partnerships and distribution channels and increase awareness among its large and growing base of small business customers.

Commenting on the investment, Khosla Venture's David Weiden said, "Today few small businesses would set up their own web or email software using onsite hardware, and more and more software is outsourced as a service everyday. RingCentral extends this value proposition to telecom hardware, saving thousands in cost and providing more functionality with an easy to use online service."

RingCentral offers the advanced capabilities of traditional office public branch exchange (PBX) systems plus integrated voice/web applications. Unlike traditional PBX or office phone systems, RingCentral is hosted on the web and is delivered in a subscription-based, software-as-a-service model. Examples of services include:

Setup and customization in minutes on the web
Toll-free and local business phone and fax numbers
Multiple extensions with voicemail
Call-forwarding to any phone
Message alerts on cell phones or PDAs
Greetings recorded by professional voice talent
Optional voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) lines.
Features such as these allow RingCentral's small business customers to use voice communications in new ways while offering cost-savings, ease of use and better functionality over traditional office phone systems.