eFusion Inc, the Beaverton, Oregon-based IP-telephony applications company, said Monday that it has secured $18.1m in private venture capital funding. The company’s third round of funding came from a number of prior investors, including Intel Corp, Microsoft Corp, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, AT&T Ventures and Shaw Venture Partners. New investors included Merrill Lynch and Velocity Capital, as well as a consortium of private investment groups, including Damac Investments Inc. The funds raised will be used to support sales growth and to further the company’s engineering programs with network infrastructure vendors.
eFusion’s core products, eStream and eBridge, are described as enhanced application servers that support an array of value-added internet telephony applications. An example of such applications are internet call waiting, which allows users connected to the internet to take inbound telephone calls through their PC without going off line. Another application allows for e-commerce web sites to be voice-enabled, where users can click on a link and initiate a call to a live sales or support agent from their PC. eFusion markets its products to telephone companies, large internet service providers, and businesses.
Meanwhile, SpeechWorks International Inc, a Boston-based provider of speech recognition technology for use in call centers, says it has received $18m in venture capital from Atlas Venture, BankAmerica Ventures, Charles River Ventures, QuestMark Partners and Riggs Capital. The company says it will use the cash to fund its growth in the US and abroad, expanding staff and increasing development activity. The company’s flagship product, SpeechWorks has built a customer list that includes E*Trade Group Inc, BellSouth Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and United Airlines Inc. á
