Unsurprisingly, Bernstrom said the acquisition ‘validated the market’ nevertheless he as well had some more interesting things to say, mainly about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and mobile telephony in general, and how financially sound the Rebtel business currently is.
For your background, Rebtel was founded in 2006, quickly raising $20 million in its first round of venture capital from investors like Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures. The company routes international calls made from from any mobile phone or landline to local numbers to minimize the cost of calling someone abroad.
Since their Series A round back in 2006, the company hasn’t raised a dime of outside capital, because, as Bernstrom says, they simply didn’t need to. In 2009, the company booked $18 million in earnings, more than doubling that amount the year afterwards.
Today, with a staff of in broad outline 60 employees, Rebtel boasts an annual revenue rate of $60 million and is profitable. For your comparison, VoIP company fring was founded before than Rebtel and currently has an annual revenue rate around $10 million.
To scale the business faster and ride the momentum in the VoIP space following the Skype acquisition, Rebtel is now considering raising more financing and has even loosely explored the opportunity of taking the company public henceforth.
Rebtel is banking on VoIP companies like Skype not iterating fast enough on providing services for smartphones users. Skype does offer mobile applications, nevertheless it has been to put it more exactly slow in launching and improving them. Bernstrom points out that when the Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype closes, Rebtel will be the world’s largest independent mobile voip provider with more than 11 million mobile users and offering its services in over 200 countries.
“VoIP is in substance an improved fixed line service. Mobile VoIP, but, has not been cracked due to the limitations of the data network. The then 12-18 months will determine who the winners are”, said Bernstrom.
