In my last post, The Future - Some Thoughts on Voice 2.0 - Presence, Availability, and putting the pieces together, I realized right after I posted, that there's a company in the FMC space that brings the one missing component in pretty effectively right now. That's BridgePort Networks. They've already got a solid working model of fixed mobile convergence. Their NomadicONE™ Network Convergence Gateway and NomadicONE IMS Convergence Server (ICS) offer solutions today. Seamless handover is a strong play in the space right now, and their work with MobileIGNITE, is building the basic interoperability requirements ease both the development and the advance of mobileVoIP solutions.

I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow morning, because I thought it was under embargo, but it's already posted for the public on BridgePort's website, so the word is out on this press release:

BridgePort Networks Raises an Additional $13 Million in Venture Capital Funding
CHICAGO (Nov. 6, 2006) -- BridgePort Networks, the leader in MobileVoIP network convergence, today announced a new investment of $13 million in Venture Capital financing in the company by its current investors.

Including previous financings of $3 million in seed financing, $10 million announced in January 2004 and $25 million announced in September 2004, the new financing brings the total capital raised by the company to $51 million.

Existing investors TD Capital Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners and BCE Capital all participated in the financing. Funds will be used for working capital in the support of the many channel partners and integrators currently working with BridgePort Networks on market trials at major telecom service providers of the company’s NomadicONE™ core network convergence software.

Whilst the company remains the leader in the emerging Voice Call Continuity (VCC) market for seamless voice handover between cellular and Wi-Fi technologies, the new funds will also be used to broaden and deepen applications for its MobileSTICK USB-SIM solution which transforms personal computers into voice, multimedia messaging and presence terminals for mobile operator services, leveraging standards-based VoIP technology.

“BridgePort Networks has largely completed its product and solution development phases and is mid-way through channel development and enablement, with several major relationships already in place”, said Mike Mulica, President and CEO of BridgePort Networks. “As the FMC market transitions to commercial deployment, this new funding positions the company well for the scale-up phase that will occur during 2007 and 2008. In particular, we are increasing our investment in our MobileSTICK solution, which is experiencing strong demand from Tier One mobile and integrated operators and can quickly scale without dependencies on new converged phones, new standards or IMS deployment.”

About BridgePort Networks
BridgePort Networks is the leader in MobileVoIP convergence -- combining the personalization and mobility of mobile phone services with the flexibility, innovation and outstanding cost economics of the rapidly growing VoIP sector. The NomadicONE product family extends single identity phone number services over multiple access networks, including - mobile, cable, DSL and Wi-Fi – in both current networks and IMS environments. The company is a leading member of the MobileIGNITE industry association for the interoperability of fixed mobile convergence (FMC) services and applications. BridgePort Networks is a global company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. To learn more about BridgePort Networks visit: www.bridgeport-networks.com.

BridgePort Networks logo and NomadicONE are trademarks of BridgePort Networks Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

I had the opportunity to interview BridgePort's Sr. VP, Marketing and Business Development Sanjay Jhawar last May. I'll be chatting with Sanjay again this coming Friday to catch up on things going on with them.  I'm sure this funding will lead to more advances in their very hot MobileSTICK technology among other things. I'm looking forward to catching up with Sanjay and getting some new insights into how things are unfolding from their prespective.

There's no doubt that BridgePort joins iotum, TalkPlus, Talkster, GrandCentral , SightSpeed, and Unyte at the vortex of Voice 2.0 reality. These are truly companies to watch.


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