Telecoms-focused corporate venture units have backed Canada-based Vantrix’s $14m third round funding to take advantage of the expected growth in video over mobile phones over the next five years.
Innovacom Venture Capital, the in-house arm of France Telecom, and Summerhill Venture Partners, which was spun out from Bell Canada in July 2007 but still counts the telecoms company and Nortel as limited partners, returned for Vantrix’s series C funding.
Tudor Ventures, the venture capital and private equity arm of hedge fund manager Tudor Investment, that sometimes invests ahead of a flotation, led the C round and was joined by return venture capitalists JK&B Capital, BDC Venture Capital and Entrepia Ventures.
Vantrix closed its series B at $12m in September 2007 and its $10m A round in January 2005 when it was known as VoiceAge Networks and in which VoiceAge Corporation had a stake.
France Telecom’s mobile phone arm, Orange, is one of Vantrix’s customers, along with Sprint, Telefonica, T-Mobile, TeliaSonera, MTS, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom Company and Tata Telecom.
Dan MacKeigan, a principal at Tudor Ventures, has joined Vantrix’s board alongside directors Joe Catalfamo, managing director at Summerhill; Ali Shadman, partner at JK&B; John Major, former Qualcomm executive and currently non-executive chairman at Broadcom; Gary Donahee, former Nortel executive; and Vantrix co-founders Allan Benchetrit, executive president, and Jean Mayrand, chief technology officer.
By 2014, mobile Internet traffic will increase by about 40 times, with video accounting for 66% of global mobile traffic, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index. Vantrix enables mobile operators to reduce the costs of delivering video to laptops, phones, iPhones and iPads.