PalTalk Secures $6MM In Venture Funding from Softbank Capital Partners; Capital to Be Used for Business Expansion.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 13, 2004 PalTalk, a leading provider of live voice and video communications over the Internet has raised $6MM in financing from Softbank Capital SOFTBANK Capital is a venture capital group in the United States. See also
PalTalk enables many-to-many multimedia (text, voice and video) conferencing over the Internet for groups up to 1,000 people. The company has over 3 million active users and has been cash-flow positive for over 2 years. The management announced that the capital will be used to substantially expand PalTalk's business - increase sales and marketing efforts, fund new product development initiatives, and support the company's entrance into new markets. "We are delighted to have venture capitalists of this caliber help us build the company," said Jason Katz, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and founder of PalTalk. "We plan to aggressively grow the company and the technology so we can continue to provide the best voice and video communications on the Internet." "Softbank Capital Partners is pleased to be leading the financing of PalTalk's latest round," said Mike Perlis, Managing Partner of Softbank Capital Partners. "PalTalk is a compelling investment because they have developed a market leading technology that enables any Internet user Internet user n → internauta m/f Internet user Internet n → internaute m/f to have instant access to video conferencing. In addition, the company has a proven business model; this latest round of funding will enable them to continue growing the business and build upon their existing success" About Softbank Capital Partners SOFTBANK Capital Partners (SBCP SBCP Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica (Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society) SBCP Sabah Biodiversity Conservation Project (Malaysia) ) is a private equity group that focuses on later-stage investments in technology based companies. SBCP's fund was launched in July 1999 and has made numerous investments in e-commerce, software, financial services and digital media and marketing companies. SBCP focuses on investments where dramatic growth and market leadership may be achieved through its active involvement. The investment team leverages their deep and diverse operating and investment experience as well as SOFTBANK's global network of operating companies, investments and other private equity fund affiliations to help each portfolio company achieve success. We aggressively manage the existing portfolio of investments as well as continually evaluate new opportunities for investment About PalTalk PalTalk is a New York-based, privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. that produces software enabling voice conferencing (VOIP (Voice Over IP) A digital telephone service that uses the public Internet as well as private backbones instead of the traditional telephone network. Many companies, including Vonage, 8x8 and AT&T (CallVantage), typically offer calling within the country for a ), video conferencing, instant messaging, voice e-mail and video e-mail over the Internet. PalTalk was founded in June of 1998 and was the first company to launch video and voice combined with an on-line buddy list in one package. PalTalk also interoperates with AOL Instant Messenger See AIM. , Yahoo messenger and ICQ ("I Seek You") A conferencing program for the Internet from Mirabilis, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.icq.com). It provides interactive chat, e-mail and file transfer and can alert you when someone on your predefined list has also come online. . PalTalk currently has 25 million total registered users in over 140 countries and provides over 8 billion voice minutes per year. PalTalk has relationships with IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , AT&T, CyberTrader (A Charles Schwab Company), DeltaThree, Doubleclick , Valueclick, and Advertising.com. |
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