September 21, 2005

Big Payday for a Skype Investor

Continued from page 1

By Jon Burke

Alarm:clock is a daily news site that evaluates privately-held technology startups in the areas of hardware, software, the Internet, and wireless communications. One company profile and one industry overview by alarm:clock's editors come to Technology Review every Wednesday by special arrangement.

For Love and Money
Vivox Adds Internet voice and video capability to text chat

Company: Vivox
HQ: Wayland, MA
Founded: 2003

Management: The chairman is Jeff Pulver, who is also a co-founder of Vonage, organizes the VON (Voice on the Net) events, publishes VON magazine, and runs a set of companies under the Pulver.com brand. No CEO or other management has been announced.

Investors: In September, Vivox raised $6 million in Series A venture capital funding from Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital. Prior to that, the company's technology was being developed within Pulver.com.

Business Model: Vivox has developed IP-based applications that add voice and video to text-based communications. The company will focus first on online dating and gaming niches. Their product will allow couples or players who are text chatting online to escalate to voice and video chat. The company's platform currently powers FreeWorld Dialup -- another Pulver.com company.

Competitors: No direct competitors today, but leaders in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market -- Skype, Net2Phone, Lingo, SIPPhone, and Packet8 -- may eventually get into dating and gaming applications.

Dirt: Chairman Jeff Pulver's name is synonymous with "visionary" and "thought leader" in VoIP; he's built several of the companies at the core of the accelerating VoIP market. When an entrepreneur is juggling as many endeavors as Pulver is, however, there's always the danger that a new venture, like Vivox, will get short shrift. Indeed, Pulver did not even announce Vivox's Series A funding on his blog, because he was in the midst of managing the VON conference. On the other hand, nobody knows the VoIP landscape better: where demand lies and where the competition is weak. Instant chat in the arenas of PC gaming and dating seems to be a natural and underserved market.