Ifbyphone, the Skokie, Ill.-based voice app company, announced the closing of $4.6 million in Series B funding. Origin Ventures and Apex Ventures, which both invested in Ifbyphone's first round of funding, led this round as well.

Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro said the company planned to use the capital infusion to continue to expand its infrastructure, to more aggressively pursue the mid-market, and to market the company more actively.

"We want to improve our ability to handle the needs of the middle market," Shapiro said. "Ifbyphone technology can automate the answering of routine call center calls, like delivery dates and hours of operation, which can be up to 25 percent of total call volume."

Shapiro said the expanded marketing operations would help to reach potential customers who might find Ifbyphone's services very attractive in a recessionary environment. He said customer support remained a top priority for the company, and he claimed that the company doesn't have customers, it just has raving fans.

One such fan is Wayne Boulais, general partner of Apex Ventures, which led both fundraising rounds.

"Ifbyphone was an attractive investment because it's successfully capitalizing on two trends," Boulais said. "It's providing low-cost VoIP services very reliably, and its compatibility with Asterisk is changing the possibilities in exciting and flexible ways. Shapiro is an experienced entrepreneur, and we've been pleasantly surprised with the company's performance."

Boulais said Ifbyphone's customer retention and conversion rates were high, and the company was well suited in challenging economic times, because of good testing methods and low barriers of adoption by customers due to an aggressive pricing scheme. 

For more:
- see ifbyphone's press page here [1]

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