Intel Capital Invests in Fonality
2/7/07 – Los Angeles-based Fonality, the provider of open source Internet telephony for the small to medium size business market, has secured $7 million in a series C round led by Intel Capital, with participation from existing investor Azure Capital Partners.
Fonality says that the financing will be used to increase product innovation for both its trixbox open source platform and its PBXtra commercial product line. It also plans to aggressively grow its channel presence, with a strong focus on international distribution.
Founded in 2004, Fonality says that it achieved profitability in 2006 and is growing at a monthly rate of ten percent. The company also claims that call volume has grown by 400 percent per year over the past three years, and that its product lines are now used by more than 1,600 businesses in 25 countries with 40,000 individual users who have made over 65 million phone calls over the company’s PBXtra hybrid-hosted business phone system.
“Pairing industry standard hardware, such as Intel server and communication platforms, with open source telephony software can create a unique ecosystem that results in lower cost, high-end features, better ease-of-use and the potential for richer telephony environments down the road,” said Lisa Lambert, managing director, Software and Solutions Group, Intel Capital. “Fonality is positioned to deliver this solution to the global mid-market and increase PC penetration in the emerging market for open source telephony.”
“Businesses are learning that they can finally afford the enterprise-class phone system they have always needed,” said Fonality CEO Chris Lyman. “Fonality is able to change the cost dynamics of the PBX market so radically with the one-two punch of open source telephony and commoditized PC hardware.”
Fonality says that its PBXtra business phone system delivers more functionality with significantly improved ease-of-use at 20 to 50 percent of the cost of comparable systems from established PBX vendors.
The company’s PBXtra product is based on the open source IP-PBX platform Asterisk.
Fonality - www.fonality.com
Intel Capital - www.intel.com/capital
Azure Capital Partners - www.azurecap.com
