Ascendent Systems Gets $7M More To Cap Series B At $14M
June 16, 2005
Ascendent Telecommunications Inc., doing business as Ascendent Systems, has raised $7 million more to close its Series B round at $14 million, VentureWire has learned.
The company, which provides voice and messaging products to businesses, received a $5 million equity investment from existing shareholders ComVentures and Enterprise Partners Venture Capital as well as $2 million in debt financing from Comerica Inc. Together, ComVentures and Enterprise Partners bought out the remaining institutional investors' stakes, which include Kline Hawkes & Co. and Forrest Binkley & Brown.
Ascendent had previously raised $7 million in the round, led by ComVentures in March 2004. Enterprise Partners Managing Director Naser Partovi said the company will likely raise a round with new investors at the end of the year, but wanted to show more revenue before doing so.
The company signed eight new customers in the first quarter, which Partovi said was due to the company's new management team. "The company went practically sideways last year," he said. "At the end of the day we didn't have the right management that was customer focused and delivering. We changed the management team and it seems to be working."
Ascendent hired Deborah Miller as CEO in February and has since brought on vice presidents of marketing and business development and a CTO. Miller joined Ascendent after serving as chairwoman and CEO of Maranti Networks Inc., provider of a network storage services controller; and CEO of Egenera Inc., a data center utility computing company.
Ascendent's products integrate cellular, home and Internet protocol phones, along with other remote devices to the private branch exchange, or PBX, so an employee can be reached with one phone call. "They free you from your desktop so your cellphone is the only thing you carry around," Partovi said. A business's employees have one voice mail that can be connected to their cellular, desktop and home phones. All phones ring at the same time in order to better locate the customer.
In the event a business system is down, within three seconds any call is transferred to an ASP server model without disruption. Other features include Get Me Conferencing. When a conference call is scheduled, each employee does not have to dial a specific number. Instead an employee can receive an automated call when it's time for the conference. So if an employee is "stuck on [U.S. Highway] 101," Miller said he'll still get the call on his cell phone.
Miller said one area the company has done well in is the automotive sector, where people doing "large ticket selling" don't want to miss a telephone call. "One of the things that you probably remember about trying to buy a used car or a new car - you're in there and you hear, 'Salesman, pick up line seven.' It just seems very unprofessional," she said. One of Ascendent's automotive customers is General Motors Corp.
Ascendent's other customers include Mack Trucks Inc., Marquette University and the General Services Administration. The company also has a partnership with Nextel Communications Inc., which rebrands the product; Telus Corp.; Intel Corp.; Microsoft Corp.; and Berbee Information Networks Corp., Cisco Systems Inc.'s largest reseller. Miller said the enterprise market is large enough that Ascendent will continue to focus on it for the next few years before considering moving into the consumer space.
Ascendent is based in San Jose. Prior to the Series B round, the company raised $8 million.