Boston tech’s biggest round of 2016 so far goes to a company focused on helping workers communicate in the cloud era.
The $112 million round is only part of today’s story on the Cambridge company, ThinkingPhones; they’ve also changed their name to Fuze, the name of a startup they acquired in November.
The new funding brings the firm to a total of $200 million raised since its founding in 2006. Leading the round is Summit Partners, the prominent Boston-based private equity firm, and taking part are existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. Fuze’s valuation in connection with the round wasn’t disclosed.
As for the name change, CEO and founder Steve Kokinos said in a news release that the company does more than just voice. Messaging, group chat, video conferencing and other collaboration tools are also part of its business comms offering. The platform ultimately aims to be simpler to use, and more attuned to the needs of a mobile workforce, than others in the market. Competitors include big names such as Slack (collaboration), Skype (video) and RingCentral (voice). “The market opportunity here is enormous,” said Summit Partners managing director Bruce Evans, who is joining the Fuze board, in a news release.
Fuze "will look to assess an IPO over the next year or two."
With the new funding in hand—and revenue that doubled in 2015 (the dollar amount wasn’t disclosed)—Fuze could soon be looking into its options for an exit, such as going public. While the focus right now is on growth, the company “will look to assess an IPO over the next year or two,” a spokesperson said.
The new round also comes after the company has already been on a major hiring push. When we last spoke with them, in June 2015, they had 400 employees; they’re now up to 700, the spokesperson said. About 125 of the new jobs have been in Cambridge, which now has a total of 325 employees.
Photo courtesy of Fuze.
