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iSkoot Has Other Social Networks In Sights |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Saturday, 03 March 2007 |
Skype anointed mobile VoIP solution company, iSkoot, has announced a successful round of venture raising taking on a briefcase full of cash from a handful of venture capital funds. The money to be used to fund iSkoot's drive to become leader in mobile Skype solutions, but the company has also announced it is developing similar solutions for other Instant Messaging and social network communities.
The US$7 million second funding round was secured after announcing
that peer-to-peer broadband telephony company Skype would be made
available onHutchison Whampoa 3 mobile phones as part of its push to
pre-load Skype onto Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets.
A co-marketing and development partnership with Skype, which is owned by eBay,
mobile
carrier for its Skype-to-mobile service. iSkoot targeted its
PC-to-mobile plug-in at Skype's PC-based voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)
service, and the iSkoot client software was certified by Skype earlier
this year. Skype, which was acquired by eBay, is the largest PC-based voice calling service, with more than 100 million subscribers.
iSkoot's software allows Skype calls to be received on mobile handsets.
The
round was led by Charles River Ventures and includes previous investors
Khosla Ventures, ZG Ventures, and Jesselson Capital Corp. As part of
this funding round, Izhar Armony, a general partner at Charles River
Ventures, will join iSkoot's Board of Directors and lend his
considerable expertise to developing and delivering new media products
into high-growth markets.
"This financing follows a previous $6.2
million Series A round of funding, bringing funding to a total of $13.2
million in the past year. iSkoot will use the funding to expand its
sales, R&D and marketing efforts, and further establish its
leadership position in the emerging mobile Internet communications
market.
"We believe that a mobile solution for Internet
calls will become a major new way for people to communicate, and iSkoot
is at the vanguard of this movement. The iSkoot management team has
deep industry knowledge and a long and successful entrepreneurial track
record in streaming digital media; we bought into the team's mission to
free Internet calling from the PC and make it ubiquitous," said Izhar
Armony, general partner, Charles River Ventures.
"iSkoot
offers mobile operators a field-tested solution and a powerful new way
to communicate, by allowing them to participate in the exploding volume
of Internet calls. We look forward to working with iSkoot management to
bring more visionary mobile products to this very promising market."
iSkoot
will use the money to expand its sales, R&D and marketing efforts,
and further establish its leadership position in the emerging mobile Internet communications market.
iSkoot
Founder and CEO Jacob Guedalia said, "This investment from Charles
River Ventures and our returning investors validates iSkoot's vision
and execution. We look at Skype as a company that showed the world a
new way of calling.
"We would like iSkoot to be known as the company
that brought Internet calling to all mobile phones. We will continue to
work with mobile operators and handset manufacturers to bring more
mobile phone models to market preloaded with iSkoot software to enable
ubiquitous mobile -to-PC calling. By embedding iSkoot in their
handsets, mobile operators can satisfy user demand for Skype and expand
average revenue per user, a clear win-win situation."
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