Intel Corp and a handful of major investment banks demonstrated their confidence in voice over DSL provider CopperCom Thursday, plowing $30m into the privately-held Silicon Valley firm. Securing its fourth round of financing, this brings the total invested in CopperCom since June 1997 to $64.1m. CopperCom said it would use the funding to help its service provider customers that target home users and small businesses, to accelerate deployment of voice over DSL across the US.
CopperCom’s voice over DSL offering, CopperComplete DSL, enables delivery of 16 voice lines and high-speed data over a single copper pair in the local loop. CopperCom spokespeople claim the basis of its competitive advantage lies in the architecture of its product. It integrates well with the installed base of DSL, ATM and voice-switching equipment already out there, said Cynthia Ringo, CEO and president of CopperCom. Company officials were not immediately available to elaborate on the investment or how it plans to develop its technology.
To implement CopperCom’s solution, three products are added to the existing network: it’s MXR customer premises equipment and the CopperCom gateway, which sits in the service provider’s central office (CO) or regional switching center. To manage the overall system, CopperCom provides its CopperCommander service management platform, which completes the architecture.
The funding was led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), Pequot Capital Management and Crescendo. Also participating in this round were previous investors Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Venture Partners, Advent International, Hambrecht & Quit, Intel, CE Unterberg Towbin, Patcriof & Co Ventures Inc, JK&B Capital, Kettle Partners and Charlie Bass.
CopperCom’s first round of outside financing of $3.6m was secured in early 1998 with the main investors being Intel, InveStar Capital, Kettle Partners LP, Volendam Capital Advisors and Charlie Bass. A second round of $13m was closed in early 1999 and a third, raising $17.5m, was completed in June 1999 with input from all of the above investors.
