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Press Release
FaceTime Communications Acquires New Investment to Accelerate Strategic Expansion
Company's Rapid Business Growth and Instant Messaging Market Leadership Result
in Late Stage Investment from BA Venture Partners
FOSTER CITY, Calif., Nov. 11, 2002 -- Building on its leadership position and
ongoing momentum in the instant messaging (IM) marketplace, FaceTime
Communications, the premier provider of network-independent, enterprise
solutions for the management and control of IM, today announced a late-stage,
growth capital investment from new lead investor BA Venture Partners and
existing FaceTime investors Sutter Hill Ventures and TH Lee Putnam Ventures.
BA Venture Partners' sole limited partner is Bank of America, one of FaceTime's
largest customers and a world-leading financial services company. By making
this strategic commitment to FaceTime, BA Venture Partners further demonstrates
the confidence major corporations have in the growth of the instant messaging
market and FaceTime's continued leadership in delivering business-critical
solutions on a global scale. The terms of the capital were not disclosed,
however, the investment was based upon a significantly increased valuation for
the Company.
FaceTime Communications provides customers such as Bank of America and over 100
enterprises with best-of-breed, comprehensive IM server solutions that
integrate business-critical workflow applications into the world's leading IM
networks. The Company is the only vendor of its kind with strategic, authorized
alliances with all of the industry-leading network and technology providers
such as AOL, Microsoft, IBM Lotus, Reuters and Yahoo!. Last week, America
Online, Inc. announced that it selected FaceTime to provide its award-winning
IM Director development platform as embedded technology for the new AOL(R)
Instant Messenger(TM) (AIM) Enterprise Gateway solution.
The Company will leverage its momentum and utilize this investment to
accelerate its expansion of international and partner channels as well as to
further develop its market-leading IM infrastructure and business applications.
"The proliferation of instant messaging in business today, with an annual
growth rate of 200%, represents a significant market opportunity," said Sharon
Wienbar, Director, BA Venture Partners. "This market shift has created a
widespread need for enterprises such as Bank of America to leverage products
and services that manage and control business-critical communications while
enabling users to harness the power and competitive advantages of IM. With more
than 100 major enterprise customers, strategic partnerships with the world's
leading IM network providers, and network-independent technology, we believe
FaceTime is the clear leader in this space."
"Our tremendous customer growth and increasing revenues have made FaceTime
stand out as an attractive opportunity for investors," said Glen Vondrick,
President and CEO FaceTime Communications. "During the past 15 months, despite
market conditions, FaceTime has achieved record revenues with major customer
wins and executed on key partnership agreements. By achieving these goals,
FaceTime now has over 100 enterprise customers in production with our products.
The results of our solid execution have garnered numerous competitive
investment bids and an over-subscribed, late-stage, growth capital round with a
company valuation that is multiples higher than our previous round. We chose to
partner with BA Venture Partners as FaceTime is close to profitability and is
poised to help accelerate our growth plans for expansion. We look forward to
continuing to set the standard for IM and enabling customers to leverage the
power of instant messaging in business."
In addition to its investment, BA Venture Partners Director Sharon Wienbar has
been appointed to FaceTime's Board of Directors. Ms. Wienbar joins existing
Board members: Tench Coxe, Managing Director of Sutter Hill Ventures; Jim
Brown, Managing Director of TH Lee Putnam Ventures; and FaceTime CEO Glen
Vondrick.
About FaceTime Communications
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant
messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by
IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by
more than 900 customers – including nine of the 10 largest U.S. banks – for
security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime
supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise
IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM and Jabber.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE.
The FaceForward blog, at http://blog.facetime.com,
offers thoughts and opinions about the changing nature of Internet communications.
About BA Venture Partners
BA Venture Partners, a venture capital partnership, leads start-up to expansion
stage investments in networking, semiconductor, software, and biotechnology
companies. The firm closed BA Venture Partners VI, a $500 million fund, in
2000. BA Venture Partners' sole limited partner is Bank of America. More
information available at: http://www.baventurepartners.com.
Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their
respective owners.
PR Contact:
Emily Chamberlin
650-762-2945
echamberlin@ar-edelman.com
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