ooma updates funding total, eyes profitability

VoIP device maker ooma said its funding announcement was weeks away before Tech Crunch broke the news last week, but ooma Chief Marketing Officer Rich Buchanan said the company's actual amount of funding was more than 30 percent larger than first reported. Buchanan said the final funding amount is still being determined, but the company has already raised $18.3 million in this round, which, Buchanan said, will give the company enough capital to reach profitability by the end of 2009. Initial reports said ooma, which offers free home VoIP service after a device purchase, raised only $14 million in the new round.

Buchanan said the company will use the funding round to increase marketing and sales efforts, as well as to scale its engineering department for new product development.

Buchanan said 26 percent of the company's user base now have signed up for ooma Premier, the company's value-added service plan. It costs either $12.99 per month or $99.99 per year and includes features like a free second phone line, three-way conferencing and find-me dialing. He added that distribution deals with Radio Shack and Best Buy have increased sales significantly, and said he thinks the company is on track for an eventual public stock offering.

"I believe we're building a very profitable business, and we're going to continue to acquire customers and provide them needed services," Buchanan said.

The distribution deals certainly will help the company pursue Buchanan's prediction; in the past three months, ooma has tripled its sales endpoints from 1,600 to nearly 5,000, according to Buchanan. 

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