Open Exchange raises $9M for Open Source Exchange Solution
By Azam on November 4, 2008 
Open Xchange a provider of SaaS open source collaboration software raised $9M Series B round of venture funding led by eCapital with participation by BayBG, and existing BayTech Venture Capital. Recently, Open-Xchange has increased the number of subscriptions by four times for the number of paid mailboxes to 8.4 million. The company will use the funds to further develop its software and continue expanding its business in the U.S., Europe and emerging markets.
Built as open source software, Open-Xchange is an affordable alternative to commercial email/collaboration platforms like Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint providing an equivalent user experience with features like mobility support (iPhones, Blackberry), document sharing, shared calendars and shared address books. The simple, intuitive software facilitates effective teamwork by improved communications.
“We’re at a point of unprecedented growth in our company’s history and will use these funds to help us add another 10 million mailboxes next year,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “As the lifeblood of every organization no matter what size, email and collaboration are going through a phase of dramatic change in many cases to hosted delivery and software as a service.”
In September, new versions of Open-Xchange software were announced for both hosted and on-premise implementations. The company also recently announced agreements with O3SIS and Funambol that enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telcos and web hosting companies, as well as on-premise customers to offer end users the ability to access email from mobile phones. In May, Open-Xchange signed a broad cooperative agreement with Parallels to integrate its software. Parallels management and automation software is the definitive standard for ISPs and web hosting companies.
The key to the company success and rapid growth in subscriptions is their partnerships with leading hosting companies. Open Xchange has established partnerships with leading hosting vendors: 1&1, Network Solutions, OVH (France), and Hostpoint (Switzerland). The firm offers an alternative hosted solution to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint which is becoming popular, especially with mobile solution become increasing used and applications are developed with the users in mind.
Previously, Open-Xchange received a total of $8.8 million in a Series A financing round from Business Angels and BayTech Venture Capital in 2006, shortly before the launch of its product with its first hosting customer 1&1 in February 2007.
About Open-Xchange Inc.
Open-Xchange Inc. is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source email and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. It provides an on-premise version called Open-Xchange Server Edition, along with Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, which enables web hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). The Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is architected to integrate into a hosting provider’s existing infrastructure such as authentication, provisioning, billing, and email storage and does not require that these systems be replaced.
Categories : EU, Tech, Wireless
Tags : , BayBG, BayTech, blackberry, ecapital, iPhone, Open-Xchange, Rafael Laguna, SaaS