QuesCom, the European Voice and Data specialist, today announced the closing of its second round of funding for a total of 12 million euros through leading international venture capital companies.
The round was led by SPEF Venture and Mitsubishi who have joined the former investors, Sofinnova Partners, SGAM and Cross Atlantic Ventures who have reinvested in the company.
" Our partnerships with internationally known companies will consolidate our current position on the market and will allow us to strengthen our commercial and strategic development, both in Europe and internationally", stated Philippe Oros, President of QuesCom. "With the proceedings of this round, we will develop our distribution channel in Europe, and our commercial partnership with major telecom players, in order to allow all enterprises to benefit from new and innovative IP Telephony services."
Even in the current Telecom market situation, QuesCom stays convinced about its success. The first steps in IP Telephony, whose take off was not as quick as forecasted, have proven that users are more interested into the concept of migration than the technology itself. The principle of the QuesCom solution is to offer enterprise customers a smooth migration and Operators an easy implementation. This idea of an Evolution has been one of the key factors in our investor's choice.
Renaud Poulard, from SPEF Venture explains the reasons of their investment: "New technologies like VoIP can potentially revolutionise the world of traditional telephony whose architecture is based on proprietary legacy technologies.
They deliver a very clear value proposition to end-users. QuesCom has adopted an innovative positioning, in phase with the market developments, allowing it to take a strong competitive position. We wanted to bring our support to this experienced and reactive management team because we are convinced they will build a success in this challenging and growing market."
Oliver Protard, Sofinnova Partners, explains the reasons that made them confident about QuesCom; " this operation, realised during unstable and turbulent economic times for Venture Capital companies, is the proof that an experienced management team, who knows how to create and position such an innovative offer, has always attracted investors. As one of the historical investors, we wanted to give QuesCom a strong support both based on their technology and on the business success already achieved."
The QuesCom solutions are targeted to both Operators and Enterprises. They both can benefit from cost effective IP Telephony value added services, through the SmartIAD® allowing them to keep the existing telephone equipment in place. According to a Frost and Sullivan study, the VoIP gateway market for Operators should increase by 100% in 2002. For the Enterprise market, it should keep on growing but not as quickly. In 2006, the VoIP equipment for Enterprise is expected to be 15% of the total market in Europe compared to 85% for the Operators. The VoIP gateway market size was $260 millions in 2001 and should reach $9.86 billions in 2006.
About QuesCom
Provider of innovative Voice and Data convergence solutions, QuesCom is a European company, whose headquarters are based in France. QuesCom's products are particularly aimed at new operators who build infrastructure services around IP networks, and equally companies wanting to take full advantage of the benefits of Internet related services, within their telecommunications systems.
QuesCom developed the SmartIAD®, an intelligent and Integrated Access Device. This is complemented by the NextBX® Software and Applications, including the NextBX® Access Call Server. By utilising an Open Architecture with Balanced Intelligence and True Convergence and by integrating existing systems, new VoIP devices and convergence for Voice and Data, QuesCom offers a complete solution to implement VoIP networks, one of the fastest growing segments in the telecommunications market.
