Networking giant Cisco led a $9.5 funding round of two-year-old application hosting firm SoonR. The move announced on Tuesday is the latest in a series of investments Cisco has been making in small Web 2.0 software firms.
Facing a changing marketplace where business and personal productivity applications increasingly exist on the web, network hardware giant Cisco has spent about $4 billion in the last year acquiring software firms such as WebEx and Reactivity.
In the last year Cisco has acquired about a half-dozen software and service firms, and earmarked another billion dollars to dole out venture funds on small firms mostly in Silicon Valley, but occasionally in China, India and Russia.
The company has invested heavily in software and services startups such as China Communications Services and Russian e-commerce firm Ozon, and has taken an equity positions in Albaba.com.
SoonR, a Campbell, California, software-as-a-service startup, markets its wares to carriers such as Danish telecom operator TeliaSonera.
SoonR, which has now raised a total of $15.5 million from investors including Cisco, Intel Capital, and Clearstone Venture Partners, allows carrier subscribers to automatically and continuously back up their data on the web using a desktop agent.
When that subscriber travels, he or she can access or share those files from any PC, laptop, or mobile device using a PC or mobile browser. It is standard SaaS except that it is tuned to carriers and sport the carrier's brand.
SoonR faces a very crowded market with scores of small SaaS rivals ready to adopt a successful business formula at a moment's notice.
"Most of the companies we see have point solutions, while we have already built the carrier interfaces and the ability to re-skin our service from the time we sign a contract," said Patrick McVeigh, SoonR’s CEO.
Last August Cisco announced that it had integrated SoonR's technology in a product called WebEx PC Now which allows mobile phone users to remotely access their desktop applications such as search, email, contacts etc.