Altair Semiconductor
Location Hod Hasharon, Israel
URLwww.altair-semi.com
Founded 2005
CEO Oded Melamed
Employees 25
Funding $8 million, 1 round
Key InvestorsJerusalem Venture Partners, Giza Venture Capital, BRM Capital
Altair Semiconductor is in a race to develop chips that would marry Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies and allow handsets and other portable devices to switch from one network to another. WiMAX, a wireless technology akin to Wi-Fi, offers a larger area of broadband coverage. The chip company, which isn’t expected to produce its first baseband chip until next year, is betting that WiMAX will be popular and provide better wireless service than cellular networks. It’s a risky bet. Many chip and equipment companies are working just as hard to improve the speed and capacity of cellular networks.
Apertio
LocationBristol, U.K.
URLwww.apertio.com
Founded 2002
CEO Paul Magelli
Employees 178
Funding $40 million, 3 rounds
Key InvestorsEden Ventures, Add Partners, Deutsche Venture Capital, Motorola Ventures
Any telecom executive will give you an earful on the cost of the industry’s new networks that will deliver more than just voice calls. In North America alone, telcos spent $63 billion last year upgrading networks. Apertio hopes that some of those funds will land in its coffers. The company sells open-standard software that enables operators to control the distribution of digital media over their networks. Recently, Apertio signed up its biggest win with T-Mobile Europe. The company could have trouble competing with giant network builders like Ericsson that use their own solutions, but has managed to partner with former competitors, including Motorola.
Axerra Networks
Location Tel Aviv, Israel
URLwww.axerra.com
Founded 2000
CEO Gadi Tamari
Employees 76
Funding $43.75 million
Key Investors Zisapel Brothers, RAD Group, HarbourVest Partners, TLCom Capital Partners, Carmel Ventures
Here’s a nifty idea: sell gear that lets you pipe all kinds of traffic over ethernet and IP networks. It’s more than just a nifty trick. It would allow, say, a wireless carrier to zap calls over a network that uses Internet protocol, rather than having to buy or rent space on a specialized pipe. That helps rapidly converging voice and data carriers move more quickly to truly unified networks that can be used to carry all kinds of traffic. Axerra Networks estimates that telecoms pay $20 billion annually for backhaul alone.
Axiom Systems
LocationReading, U.K.
URLwww.axiomsystems.com
Founded 1989
CEO Gareth Senior
Employees 112
Funding $26 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors GeoCapital Partners, HG Capital
Axiom Systems’ software hits hot-button issues as the telecom industry begins to fuse several services such as wireless, VoIP, and IPTV. In a nutshell, Axiom helps providers with the design, creation, and delivery of wireline and wireless services. The AXIOSS suite, for example, incorporates modules for order management, service inventory, service activation, and designer tools. Its customer list includes Deutsche Telekom, Cable & Wireless, and AOL. All nifty stuff, but Axiom will have to fight competition from larger companies such as MetaSolv, Cramer, and Syndesis.
B3G Telecom
LocationParis, France
URLwww.b3g-telecom.com
Founded 2001
CEO Christophe Bach
Employees 100
Funding $21.2 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Axa Private Equity, Societe Centrale d’Investissements, Partech International, BNP Private Equity
B3G Telecom is already one of Europe’s main players in the value-added call termination wholesale market, with customers such as Colt, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, and Skype. It also offers “white label” VoIP services for carriers that want to introduce the service to their customers. B3G, which had revenues of $72.7 million in 2005, also sells VoIP equipment and services to small businesses, and is now looking to target multinational customers. However, it is likely to face some tough competition from France Telecom and others in this new space.
BitBand Technologies
LocationNetanya, Israel
URLwww.bitband.com
Founded 1999
CEO Ervin Leibovici
Employees 60
Funding $17.8 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Sequoia Capital, APAX Partners, The Challenge Fund-Etgar, AVIV Venture Capital, Ascend Ventures, Portview Communications
A pioneer in the IPTV market, BitBand Technologies delivers video storage and streaming through IP networks, helping telcos to deliver the triple play—voice, data, and video services. Its technology can be meshed into many different types of networks without major overhauls, enabling telcos and service providers to introduce new services while maximizing usage of their existing infrastructure. Customers include Comcast, Cablevision, Qwest Broadband, Time Warner Cable, and a range of smaller broadcasting companies. BitBand’s main competitors are publicly traded C-Cor, privately held Kasenna, and publicly traded SeaChange, all U.S.-based companies.
Cognima
LocationLondon, U.K.
URLwww.cognima.com
Founded 2001
CEO Mark Bole
Employees 29
Funding $23 million
Key Investors Atlas Venture, Crescendo Ventures, TLcom Capital Partners, TTP Ventures
Mobile software maker Cognima started working on the limitations of camera phones before most people had one. The company has tied up with web sites Flickr, Buzznet, Textamerica, and Webshots, which gives its camera photo-sharing program ShoZu a first-mover advantage. Users can instantly send off photos from their phones to these web sites, giving the word realtime a new urgency. Will Cognima reach beyond just entertainment? The healthcare industry, for instance, could use the service for diagnostics; agriculturists for identifying crop diseases. Cognima would also do well to enter Asian markets, where mobile telephony is breaking growth records.
cVidya Networks
Location Tel Aviv, Israel
URLwww.cvidya.com
Founded 2001
CEO Alon Aginsky
Employees 54
Funding $13 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Hyperion Israel Venture Partners, StageOne Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Star Ventures
Telecommunications service providers face severe network revenue drain thanks to lack of data integrity, fumbling business processes, and system integration problems. cVidya Networks’ software helps companies such as Telecom Italia and Cable & Wireless stanch the leaks and increase revenue by detecting and correcting revenue sieves in their network. cVidya is targeting a growing market as telcos consolidate and become larger fixed-line providers, mobile carriers, and triple-play operators providing voice, data, and video. Telecom billing and revenue management is also heating up, as evidenced by Oracle recently buying Portal Software for $220 million—making cVidya a potential acquisition target.
DiBcom.com
LocationPalaiseau, France
URLwww.dibcom.net
Founded 2000
CEO Yannick Levy
Employees 90
Funding $48.7 million, 4 roundsKey Investors Cipio Partners, Convergent Capital, Credit Agricole Private Equity, Freescale Semiconductor, Intel Capital, Partech International, SGAM Alternative Investments, Vertex Venture Capital, UMC, WI Harper, 3i
DiBcom.com was among the first to design chipsets that enable low-power mobile and portable TV reception. Now that this market is starting to take off, the fabless semiconductor company is making a name for itself. DiBcom.com recently announced a large order for Italy’s mobile media company 3, and its chips are already being used in mobile TV trials across Europe and in handsets produced by Ben-Q, Siemens, and Samsung. DiBcom.com’s chipsets are compliant with the digital video broadcast standards DVB-T and DVB-H, but the company says it also plans to produce chips for competing standards. It does, though, face competition from players such as Frontier Silicon.
Fractus
LocationBarcelona, Spain
URLwww.fractus.com
Founded 1999
CEO Rubén Bonet
Employees 65
Funding $19.5 million, 3 rounds
Key Investors Rubén Bonet, Carles Puente, Juan Roure, 3i, Barcelona Empren, SCR, Apax Partners
Remember the Disney cartoon classic, The Grasshopper and the Ants, where insects receive instant information from each other through their unobtrusive antennae? Fractus’ products allow humans to do almost that. Its fractal technology allows for tiny mobile device antennae that work at multiple frequencies. These in turn make possible cell phones that are both small and multimedia-capable, features increasingly in demand worldwide. Major handset makers like Samsung, Sagem, and Telefónica now use the antennae in their phones. The challenge now for Fractus is convincing the rest of the industry to adopt its FracWave Full Wireless System-In-Package technology.
Highdeal
LocationParis, France
URLwww.highdeal.com
Founded 2000
CEO Eric Pillevesse
Employees 60
Funding $31 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors 3i, Newbury, CDC Innovation, Innovacom, France Telecom
Highdeal helps service providers like AOL-Germany and Cypress Communications deliver new services to customers in just a few days, rather than months. The company’s patented pricing and rating technology enables content providers, on-demand software firms, and telcos to quickly price services to maximize profits. Pricing may not sound sexy, but it has enabled Highdeal to grow by 85 percent in the U.S. market last year. Highdeal reached profitability in 2005 and will spend 2006 trying to keep momentum growing. The trick will be to keep convincing companies with deep pockets that a pricing service is really worth the extra cost.
Icera Semiconductor
LocationBristol, U.K.
URLwww.icerasemi.com
Founded 2002
CEO Stan Boland
Employees 115
Funding $100 million, 3 rounds
Key Investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Accel Partners, Atlas Venture, Benchmark Capital
Icera Semiconductor develops wireless platforms for mobile terminals, including phones and personal media players. Its software-based wireless communication chip targets the delivery of multimode HSPDA cellular broadband solutions. Icera’s products are expected to be integrated into data cards on laptops in Europe and Asia later this year, with handsets to follow. The company’s goal is to build a global, Europe-based fabless chip company with staying power—a daunting task. But CEO Stan Boland remains confident. “Europe needs to have its own indigenous fabless cellular chip company and we are planning to be it,” he says.
Industria
LocationReykjavik, Iceland
URLwww.industria.com
Founded 2004
CEO Gudjon Mar Gudjonsson
Employees 100+
Funding N/A
Key Investors N/A
It’s natural that a startup betting on broadband growth would emerge from Iceland. Recently the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development declared the land of Bjork and Vikings the No. 1 country for broadband usage, beating out stalwart South Korea. Industria’s broadband-based services include its IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) technology, which delivers digital media over IP networks. Industria designs and operates the pipes that deliver digital content for its customers. The company’s customers are all over the map, including utility companies, private investment firms, and a service provider.
ip.access
LocationCambridge, U.K.
URLwww.ipaccess.com
Founded 1999
CEO Stephen Mallinson
Employees 90
Funding $14.7 million, 1 round
Key Investors Scottish Equity Partners, Intel Capital, Rothschild
While the cellular industry touts the ubiquity of cell phone coverage, there’s one place where cell phones lose luster—indoors. Carriers have invested billions in wide-area outdoor cellular networks, but that does little good when a subscriber can’t get coverage in the home or office. ip.access is trying to fill this gap with the company’s indoor network hardware. But ip.access could falter if carriers one day embrace Wi-Fi as the de facto standard for indoor wireless technology. If dual Wi-Fi cell phones ever reach critical mass, indoor cellular could turn out to be a minor market.
Ipracom
Location Massy, France
URLwww.ipracom.com
Founded 2001
CEO Serge Dugas
Employees 15
Funding $4.7 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors CDC Enterprises Innovation, Innovacom, CapDecisif
Researchers at Datamonitor expect revenue from enterprise mobile email to surpass $600 million by 2009. The money will come from the ever-growing legions of mobile employees. But Ipracom is different than many wireless startups in the business market, because it uses a peer-to-peer technology, coined “IpraCool,” to connect mobile devices and PCs. The service also offers a “push” Blackberry-style function that can push emails, contacts, and files. The company compares itself to Skype—easy-to-download, and works over any network. But in light of Skype’s real or hyped security issues, Ipracom will have to assure business clients that the system will protect information.
Liekki
LocationLohja, Finland
URLwww.liekki.com
Founded 1999
CEO Per Stenius
Employees 30
Funding N/A
Key Investors Stratos Ventures, Finnish Industrial Investment, private individuals, employees, others
Liekki makes optical fibers and fiber subassemblies for fiber amplifiers and lasers using its Direct Nanoparticle Deposition (DND) technology. The company claims the new technology allows it to produce fibers that are especially attractive for use in fiber lasers. As a result, Liekki’s fibers are used in high-power fiber lasers for industrial manufacturing, in military and aerospace applications, telecom amplifiers, and light sources. The word “Liekki” in Finnish means “flame,” which refers to the flame used in the DND process that differentiates it from competing technologies.
Mobile Commerce
LocationCirencester, U.K.
URLwww.mobilecommerce.co.uk
Founded 1999
CEO Steve Page
Employees N/A
Funding N/A
Key Investors T-Mobile Venture Fund, 3i
As its name implies, Mobile Commerce enables consumers to make transactions via mobile devices. The company also offers mobile search services, and acts as a mobile content aggregator and distributor. To pull this off, Mobile Commerce has forged alliances with content suppliers, including Yahoo, Thomson, Multimap, and others. Generic mobile commerce sales are slated to hit $3.6 billion this year—a figure that’s certain to draw a lot of competition from big companies like Motorola, Qualcomm, and NTT DoCoMo. That could mean Mobile Commerce could soon become an acquisition target of suitors with deep pockets.
Nemerix
LocationManno, Switzerland
URLwww.nemerix.com
Founded 2002
CEO Ron Torten
Employees 57
Funding $53 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Atila Ventures, Auriga Partners, PolyTechnos Venture-Partners, Oak Investment Partners
As people become more mobile, companies that bet on location-based technologies, from helping drivers navigate to locating handset users who called for emergency services, are finding themselves in a growing market. Nemerix, which designs GPS chips, has found customers in manufacturers such as Central Pacific International Technology, Wonde Proud, and C&H Technologies. But it faces tough competition from other GPS players such as SiRF Technology. But GPS works poorly indoors and in urban areas, where buildings can obstruct the satellite signals. Plenty of startups now offer competing chip and software technologies to track people.
NetCentrex
LocationParis, France
URLwww.netcentrex.com
Founded 1999
CEO Theodore Martin
Employees 290
Funding $45.5 million, 3 rounds
Key investors Technocom Ventures, CDC Innovation, Innovacom-Newbury Ventures, Natexis Investissment
Taking advantage of the VoIP craze, NetCentrex has emerged as a leader in providing consulting, integration, and network elements to VoIP service providers. Besides bagging big clients like France Telecom, FastWeb, and Tele2, the company has expanded globally to Boston, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Warsaw, and is eyeing Beijing. The secret to the success is providing one-stop shopping to clients—offering a complete VoIP solution to its customers and allowing immediate deployment.
Netsize
LocationParis, France
URLwww.netsize.com
Founded 1998
CEO Stanislas Chesnais
Employees 220
Funding N/A
Key investors GRP Partners, Partech International, Rothschild Gestion, GemVentures
Netsize’s software lets merchants deliver, bill, and manage mobile services across a variety of markets. The company saw vigorous growth in 2005, expanding its presence to 32 countries, serving over 1.1 billion mobile subscribers globally, and more than doubling its revenues to $106 million. It also achieved profitability for the first time. Customers include Peugot, VeriSign, and BBD0. Netsize has ambitious plans to expand into the United States, Asia, and South America and double its revenues yet again. Competition is stiff, however, and consolidation has been the result: VeriSign acquired competitor Mcube, and InphoMatch and Mobileway have merged to form Mobile 365.
Nexagent
LocationReading, U.K.
URLwww.nexagent.com
Founded 2000
CEO Royce Murphy
Employees 57
Funding $52 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Esther Dyson, Andrew Smith, Martin Velasco, Greg Lock, Tony Morris, Mike Reilly, Apax Partners, Atlas Venture, Benchmark Capital, iGabriel.net (now Pi Capital), Lago Ventures, Quester Capital
Middleware might not be a sexy business, but it’s a necessary one. Nexagent provides telephone carriers, system integrators, and virtual network operators with technology to improve network efficiency and integration. The company does this through consulting, hardware to properly prioritize and route data, and CAD-like design tools. But Nexagent needs to build brand awareness and convince organizations that outsourcing their networks is a smart move. According to Gartner, studies clearly demonstrating the benefits of switching could be a good way to do just that.
OnRelay
LocationSurrey, U.K.
URLwww.onrelay.com
Founded 2000
CEO Ivar Plahte
Employees 25
Funding N/A
Key Investors GEIF Ventures, NW Brown Group, iGabriel, Leonardo Investments, Jeff Pulver
OnRelay made two big bets at its founding: First, that one day, all mobile phones would be smart, and that the mobile platform would one day use a standard operating system. Second, that the PBX would not go the way of the dodo, but would ultimately evolve into an IP/software-based voice server. To that end, OnRelay came up with the Telephony Internetworking Protocol, which became the core of its intellectual property. The protocol allows integration between mobile systems and corporate voice systems. Having bagged its first few big orders, the company is now focusing on delivery and building its headcount.
Operax
LocationStockholm, Sweden
URLwww.operax.com
Founded 2000
CEO Anders Linden
Employees 50
Funding $23 million, 5 rounds
Key Investors Nordic Venture Partners, Innovacom, Emano
Operax, a provider of software solutions for quality of service monitoring and bandwidth management, is thinking global. It believes demand for its product in the telecom sector is poised for takeoff, and to that end, it has set up operations in London, Rome, Seoul, and Washington, D.C. It’s already doing trials with Tier-1 operators in Europe, and is hopeful these trials will translate to deployments by year’s end. It competes with companies like Tazz Networks, Bridgewater, and Camiant, but believes its approach to policy and resource-based admission control makes it uniquely positioned to build market share quickly.
Otodio
LocationLondon, U.K.
URLwww.otodio.com
Founded 2003
CEO Peter Bond
Employees 8
Funding $570,000, 1 round
Key Investors Private individuals, Ariadne Capital
Time-strapped commuters now have no excuse for not reading the papers. Otodio sells software that publishers can use to turn print into audio files for delivery on mobile phones, digital radios, and portable audio players. Otodio’s software can be used as a plug-in or can be embedded into the devices. The company can also push audio content through multiple channels such as GPRS, 3G, Internet, Wi-Fi, and satellite. The startup says an entire newspaper can be delivered to a cell phone in about five seconds. But it remains to be seen whether mobile junkies will subscribe to such a service for their daily news fix.
picoChip Designs
LocationBath, U.K.
URLwww.picochip.com
Founded 2000
CEO Guillaume d’Eyssautier
Employees 65
Funding >$41 million, 3 rounds
Key Investors Pond Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Scottish Equity Partners, Rothschild, Intel Capital
Targeting an emerging market is always a smart move for a young company, and that’s picoChip Designs’ mission. The chip developer, which started by focusing on third-generation cellular network equipment, has found traction in the WiMAX market lately. The company, whose digital signal processors go into base stations, also has software that can reprogram the chips for network upgrades. That saves money for picoChip’s customers. But WiMAX is far from being popular and broadband operators just spent billions to build 3G cellular networks. That’s a risk for picoChip but it also makes the company an interesting one to watch.
Picsel
LocationGlasgow, U.K.
URLwww.picsel.com
Founded 1998
CEO Imran Khand
Employees 140
Funding $17 million, 2 rounds
Key Investors Softbank Europe Ventures, Bank of America, Yasuda, CSK Venture Capital
Consumers’ quick adoption of cell phones has brought with it a demand for software that can extend the capabilities of the phone. Picsel’s products allow users to scan, browse, and access information in any format—documents, web pages, video, or photographs—on their mobile devices. Its document viewer and browser software works with all mobile operating systems and can be embedded by cell phone makers into a chip or downloaded independently by users. Picsel is stepping on the toes of Microsoft and Adobe, which are also eyeing the mobile space, and the company will need some strong partnerships in order to successfully take on the giants.
Premitech
LocationBallerup, Denmark
URLwww.premitech.com
Founded 1999
CEO Jan I. Nielsen
Employees 28
Funding $5.5 million, 3 rounds
Key Investors Maersk Data, Venture IT, Dansk Erhvervsinvestering and Strandgade Holding
In its quest to be the global leader in performance management, PremiTech has bagged some big clients: Microsoft, Siebel, IBM, and Accenture. The company’s software tracks network and transaction data for each running process and then correlates that data to give a lucid view of how the application environment is performing. Besides accolades for its software, it’s also managed to build a pleasant working environment: No one has left the company in six years. Despite that kind of working environment, the company says its biggest challenge is hiring enough people to maintain its expansion into the United States and Germany.
Siano Mobile Silicon
LocationNetanya, Israel
URLwww.siano-ms.com
Founded 2004
CEO Alon Ironi
Employees 40
Funding $34.5 million, 2 rounds
Key InvestorsJerusalem Venture Partners, Star Ventures, Walden Israel, Bessemer Venture Partners
Cellular service operators are counting on making good money from people who can’t live without their favorite TV shows. Siano Mobile Silicon intends to take advantage of that trend. The chip company, which has developed a low-power, multi-band chipset that allows handsets to receive TV signals, has made steady progress in lining up customers. Compal Communications, which has made handsets for Motorola and Panasonic, will put Siano’s chipset in PDAs. Innoxius Technologies in Singapore plans to set up mobile TV networks in Southeast Asia and promotes handsets with Siano’s silicons. But it faces tough competitors, including another company on this list, DiBcom.
SpinVox
LocationMaidenhead, U.K.
URLwww.spinvox.com
Founded 2003
CEO Christina Domecq
Employees 41
Funding $14 million, 3 rounds
Key Investors Private investors
SpinVox has a straightforward tagline: “The first voicemail-to-text service” for cell phones and landlines. The technology converts voice messages to text messages, a convenient service for busy mobile workers or consumers who would rather read a quick text note than listen to messages. Text messages are stored in cell phones, so users don’t have to take the trouble to write down important details, and can easily go back and read notes. But as a business, SpinVox is so far a one-trick pony, and could likely end up being acquired by a larger service provider.
Telsome
LocationCopenhagen, Denmark
URLwww.telsome.com
Founded 2004
CEO Klaus Rathmann
Employees 25
Funding $12 million
Key Investors N/A
Telsome plans to expand aggressively in order to reach its goal of becoming the market leader in IP PBX (Internet protocol private branch exchange) services to businesses and consumers throughoutEurope. It’s also looking to add more names to its customer list, which already includes McDonald’s, Maersk Logistics, and Invensys. In the meantime, the company will have to fend off competition from brand-name companies like Vonage, Cisco, and Avaya. Telsome, already profitable, is accelerating its break-even rate—12 months for Denmark, and six months for Spain. The company intends to seek new funding, in part to fuel the opening of five new bases throughout Europe.
Voltaire
LocationHerzliya, Israel
URLwww.voltaire.com
Founded 2000
CEO Ronnie Kenneth
Employees 100
Funding $65 million, 4 rounds
Key Investors Pitango Venture Capital, Baker Capital, Platinum Venture Capital, The Challenge Fund-Etgar, Tamir Fishman Ventures
Voltaire’s technology—fully modular multi-service switches—smoothes the transition from large, expensive, proprietary SMP hosts to grid computing solutions that offer comparable performance at a lower cost. Its major clients include the U.S. Department of Defense, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories. The company provides the entire switch, unlike most of its competitors. While that gives it an edge, Voltaire does face some stiff competition from Cisco, following its 2005 acquisition of Topspin Communications. Other competitors include Myricom and SilverStorm Technologies.
Wicom Communications
LocationEspos, Finland
URLwww.wicom.com
Founded 1999
Chairman Ikka Kivimäki
Employees 75
Funding N/A
Key Investors 3i, Accenture Technology Ventures, Stratos Ventures
Wicom Communications is poised to help companies channel voice and data traffic over one IP-based network. Its Communications Server Suite centrally administers communications for enterprises and call centers, integrating telephone systems, voice mail, emails, online address books, mobile devices, and fax communications. Large customers include Finland Post Group, Fujitsu, and German cable company Premiere. But to compete with the likes of Cisco or U.S.-based players such as Interactive Intelligence, Wicom will have to get more sales traction, particularly in North America. It says it grew software license revenue 30 percent last year, but has yet to turn a profit.
Xeround Systems
LocationYehud, Israel
URLwww.xeround.com
Founded 2005
CEO Sharon Barkai
Employees 30
Funding $6.5 million, 1 round
Key Investors Benchmark Capital, Giza Venture Capital
The telecom industry anticipates stellar growth with next-generation networks and Xeround Systems plans to help by handling the anticipated massive demand in customer information requests. Xeround claims to be a specialist in providing databases for telcos—helping them transition to next-generation networks by processing a large number of real-time events fast. Xeround plans to sell its products as an embedded database, but it could be ahead of its time. Despite the cutting-edge technology, the company has yet to find large customers so it risks being pigeonholed in the telecom industry, while fighting off big competitors such as Oracle and MySQL.