VentureBeat: Ooma raises $14M more amid tough round
youmon
· 5 months ago
Convert to common = wipe out
PeeKay
· 5 months ago
The facts are simple and clear: Worldview's feud with DFJ led to their squeezing out the latter in this "ready made, engineered to benefit Worldview" round of financing at Ooma. If Ooma gets bought out, Worldview benefits enough to recover their money (DFJ doesn't; nor will employees for that matter which the savvy have figured out and therefore left...) and if Ooma fails (as is likely, given their track record, Worldview's, and the competitive landscape) Worldview can blame it on industry conditions and poor execution by management. Either way they win. View this in the full context of their investments in OnStor, Force10, Cemaphore and other companies that they ran into the ground by feuding with competent founders and executives, engineering crises and "guiding" those companies to raise money that gave Worldview an edge (temporary as it turns out; for they only killed those companies...)
Can someone ask Forbes how they concluded Mike Orsakk was a Midas Investor? Do a little investigative reporting on him, talk to the companies he was on the board of/ran into the ground and...
Alain
· 5 months ago
When a company you invested in has raised $56 million+ and you loose "something called a liquidation preference", and the round double the number of shares, as an investor, you are in practice pretty much wiped out as TechCrunch mentioned (unless the company valuation suddenly jumps to $100M+).
Ashie S Hirji
· 5 months ago
Matt Marshall
We are interested to speaking with Venture Beat. We are raising our next finance raise.
Several fortuned 500 companies have built this solution & are spearheading the push for secured multimedia communication solultion. We have proof of concept - we can demo live on here via your blog if you are interested. to seeing it live in real time. how can I reach you here is my emal ashie.s@asitainformatica.com
Mo
· 4 months ago
"However, the challenge is that Ooma generally makes a one-time sale of its device, and so has trouble making recurring revenue."
You have a lot of information about Ooma funding but it doesn't sound like you know much about the product. Ooma has a new hub ("VoIP box") that is launching for the holiday sales season along with new cordless handsets that extend the use of the hub. Panasonic makes money selling cordless phone base units and expansion handsets so why can't Ooma? Ooma will offer a cordless phone and VoIP all-in-one product as a more appealing option to a regular cordless phone.
They have also expanded their sales to numerous retailers such as Amazon.com, BestBuy, Target, WalMart, Staples, Radio Shack, Costco and so on. Ooma doesn't charge for base services which is appealing to cost conscious people looking to cut landline costs over time. They currently have a premier product many Ooma users buy with a monthly fee. These services include a second line and with the new hub will tie into a GoogleVoice account among other services. Ooma plans to branch out to home automation and security/video products that tie into the Ooma hub. There are many current and potential revenue streams in additional to the initial hub purchase.
"It also requires people to pay for yet another telecommunications service, when they already have a broadband connection and a fixed line."
Ooma can be a landline ("fixed line") replacement similar to Vonage or VoIP services but more affordable. The key to sales is the savings through free US phone calls without any landline monthly bills. All that you need is broadband which is also required for Skype or any VoIP to be a landline replacement.
"With free services like Skype becoming more popular, the competitive landscape is likely to remain extremely tough for Oooma."
Skype requires a computer to run, a smartphone or the purchase of a Skype phone ($100). You can't easily use a home phone with cordless extension handsets with Skype making it hard to be a home landline replacement. Plus Skype charges $3/month to make unlimited calls to a US landline so its not free. While Skype is a competitor the call quality is not as good as Vonage or Ooma and it has many drawbacks for a consumer looking for a plug and play VoIP landline replacement solution.
To think Ooma can't make money has me guessing you were looking at their business from 2007 instead of their business in 2009. While I agree the competitive landscape is tough you must recognize the value add of Ooma over the competitors & the other revenue generating opportunities for Ooma.
On another note, what happened with TD Funds investment in Ooma during this dilution? The FCC investing in this Telcom product is a great sign for Ooma.
All Comments
View this in the full context of their investments in OnStor, Force10, Cemaphore and other companies that they ran into the ground by feuding with competent founders and executives, engineering crises and "guiding" those companies to raise money that gave Worldview an edge (temporary as it turns out; for they only killed those companies...)
Can someone ask Forbes how they concluded Mike Orsakk was a Midas Investor? Do a little investigative reporting on him, talk to the companies he was on the board of/ran into the ground and...
We are interested to speaking with Venture Beat. We are raising our next finance raise.
Several fortuned 500 companies have built this solution & are spearheading the push for
secured multimedia communication solultion. We have proof of concept - we can demo live on here
via your blog if you are interested. to seeing it live in real time. how can I reach you here is my emal
ashie.s@asitainformatica.com
You have a lot of information about Ooma funding but it doesn't sound like you know much about the product. Ooma has a new hub ("VoIP box") that is launching for the holiday sales season along with new cordless handsets that extend the use of the hub. Panasonic makes money selling cordless phone base units and expansion handsets so why can't Ooma? Ooma will offer a cordless phone and VoIP all-in-one product as a more appealing option to a regular cordless phone.
They have also expanded their sales to numerous retailers such as Amazon.com, BestBuy, Target, WalMart, Staples, Radio Shack, Costco and so on. Ooma doesn't charge for base services which is appealing to cost conscious people looking to cut landline costs over time. They currently have a premier product many Ooma users buy with a monthly fee. These services include a second line and with the new hub will tie into a GoogleVoice account among other services. Ooma plans to branch out to home automation and security/video products that tie into the Ooma hub. There are many current and potential revenue streams in additional to the initial hub purchase.
"It also requires people to pay for yet another telecommunications service, when they already have a broadband connection and a fixed line."
Ooma can be a landline ("fixed line") replacement similar to Vonage or VoIP services but more affordable. The key to sales is the savings through free US phone calls without any landline monthly bills. All that you need is broadband which is also required for Skype or any VoIP to be a landline replacement.
"With free services like Skype becoming more popular, the competitive landscape is likely to remain extremely tough for Oooma."
Skype requires a computer to run, a smartphone or the purchase of a Skype phone ($100). You can't easily use a home phone with cordless extension handsets with Skype making it hard to be a home landline replacement. Plus Skype charges $3/month to make unlimited calls to a US landline so its not free. While Skype is a competitor the call quality is not as good as Vonage or Ooma and it has many drawbacks for a consumer looking for a plug and play VoIP landline replacement solution.
To think Ooma can't make money has me guessing you were looking at their business from 2007 instead of their business in 2009. While I agree the competitive landscape is tough you must recognize the value add of Ooma over the competitors & the other revenue generating opportunities for Ooma.
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/voip/o...
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ip-com...
On another note, what happened with TD Funds investment in Ooma during this dilution? The FCC investing in this Telcom product is a great sign for Ooma.