Jaxtr Inc. has
added Lehman Brothers Venture Partners to its roster of investors for a new $10 million Series B round, doubling the startup's private funding to date. Once
positioned as an Internet phone service that connected people on social networks, Jaxtr Inc. is now marketing itself primarily as an inexpensive international calling service.
Existing investors in the startup included August Capital and Mangrove Capital Partners, who joined for its $10 million Series A round last summer, and seed-stage backers Mayfield Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Richards, the Founders Fund, Richmond Management, and individuals including prominent Silicon Valley angels Reid Hoffman and
Ron Conway. The seed backers supplied an initial $1.8 million, which was rolled into the Series A upon its completion in August 2007.
Jaxtr's international calling service connects far-flung users via local phone numbers on both ends, allowing the parties to make Internet calls from their phones without adding software or connecting through their PCs. The caller must first input the recipient's "true" phone number at the Jaxtr Web site, generating a local number which the caller can dial to reach that person in the future. The service can also be used to connect parties who know each other only via social networks, allowing them to connect via clicking links rather than dialing their phones (and thereby maintaining the privacy of their phone numbers).
The service is similar to that of Jajah Inc., backed by Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital. A third company in the sector, Jangl Inc.,
sold its assets to Live Universe Inc. after much of its executive team decamped to Jajah. All compete on some level with Skype Technologies SA, although Skype provides IP telephony via a user's PC rather than a telephone. Online auctioneer eBay Inc.
acquired Skype for $4.3 billion in 2005.
Angel investor Hoffman and Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke are both
founders of professional-oriented social network
LinkedIn, which raised a $53 million fourth round at a reported valuation of $1 billion last week.
-- Paul BonanosSee June 23 press release from JaxtrSee August 2007 story from TheDeal.com about Jaxtr's first roundSee interview with Ron Conway from Tech Confidential
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