By Allan Maurer
EXCLUSIVE REPORT – RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – NeoNova Network Services, which sells managed IP services for telcos, municipal organizations and cable companies, has raised $2 million in new capital from Azure Capital and Bridgescale Partners, the West Coast venture firms that bought the company in 2008.
Sean Murphy, vice president of sales and marketing at the company, tells TechJournal South, “We’re a profitable company. Technically, we don’t need the money.”
The company does, however continues to invest in its data center introduce new products, five in the last 12 months, he says. “This money is to continue that process.”
NeoNova’s clients are primarily rural telcos “Who don’t have the manpower, buying power or resources to do what we do,” explains Murphy.
He says a lot of NeoNova’s customers decided not to pursue the federal stimulus money meant to boost rural broadband. “It had too many strings attached,” he says.
Those include costly reporting requirements that would offset favorable loan rates. The program also seemed more geared to new companies than established ones, disqualifying companies that already meet certain bandwidth levels.
Murphy says the company is currently engaged in a pilot program testing a “My Cloud” program that would run a netbook PC on an open source system with most of its applications and data stored virtually and accessed via a browser.
Rural Telcos would offer the netbooks along with an Internet service program much as the larger firms such as AT&T are doing.
The company’s West Coast backers and owners have contributed more than just cash to the business, Murphy says.
Azure, which has several other firms in the space, “Knows the communications industry,” says Murphy. “So they have multiple points of perspective and contribute management assistance and focus beyond money.”
The company employs about 65, up from the 25 there when it was purchased in 2008.
Previously on TechJournal South:
http://techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4943
West Coast VCs buyout NeoNova Networks, Raleigh-based provider of rural broadband services
Online: www.neonova.com
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