TMCnet News
Vonage Reportedly Filing for IPOBY JOHANNE TORRES
TMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
VoIP Minute Watch has big news today about Vonage Holdings Corporation. According to TheDeal.com, the VoIP service provider is planning to file for an initial public offering (IPO). According to the report, the move will help the company raise as much as $600 million.
The company had already managed to raise a whopping $408 million in venture capital rounds led by Bain Capital, with strong participation from existing investors including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), 3i, Meritech Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, in addition to other investors. Last May, the company announced it had completed a successful $200-million private financing round, and then told a Red Herring magazine reporter that it had no immediate plans to file for an IPO.
"Raising money in the private market is a lot more efficient use of management time," Vonage CFO John Rego told the reporter. "This is a critical time for the company and we are building an exploding business right now. We need to be focused on that."
Vonage, which currently claims to serve about 800,000 residential customers, has had a summer filled with many favorable partnerships, added services, and innovative product developments.
The company teamed up with cordless phone giant VTech, along with Texas Instruments (TI) to bring the Vonage-ready IP-8100-2 cordless handset to over 8000 retail locations around the U.S. The devices, designed by VTech and bundled with a VoIP chipset by TI, are configured with Vonage's VoIP phone-based service and retail for $149.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate after sixty days of service. The ip8100-2 is currently being sold at retail locations nationwide, including SAM's Club, Radio Shack, Best Buy, Circuit City, Staples, Fry's Electronics, Office Depot and CompUSA.
The company has also been very busy working with E911 technology provider Intrado to comply with the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) recent VoIP E911 ruling. The agency ordered that all providers have VoIP E911 access up and running before the end of November. Vonage, which reportedly set $10 million aside to be used solely for its E911 efforts, has been working with Intrado since November last year.
Vonage has yet to officially announce its IPO plans. The company had not released a news announcement for press use at the time of our publication. Please keep checking the VoIP Minute Watch, our blogs and forums at TMCnet.com for more updates on Vonage's IPO plans.
Vonage Holdings Corporation
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit:
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