Azure Bags $15M FundingAzure Bags $15M Funding

LONDON -- Azure Solutions, the revenue-assurance company, today announced that it has secured a further $15 million of funding. This round of funding was led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, the early-stage technology venture capital fund, with additional financing coming from Intel Capital, Intel’s strategic investment program. Existing investors New Venture Partners (NVP), the corporate venturing firm, AG Edwards, the financial services holding company, and Hexagon Investments, the private investment company, also contributed.

The funding will be used to develop further Azure’s next-generation telecoms revenue-assurance portfolio and accelerate the company’s geographic expansion across the Americas and Asia Pacific. Additionally, Jerry Ennis, at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures will be joining Azure’s board of directors.

Azure enables communications operators worldwide to reduce losses and safeguard profits from malicious and unintentional revenue leakage. Global operator revenue losses are currently estimated at 10.7 per cent of turnover (Analysys/Azure Solutions, 2004). This equates to over one hundred billion dollars of lost revenue per annum and this figure is likely to increase with the emergence of next-generation telecoms services and technology.

Azure has already launched Azure Inter-Party Management as the first product in its next-generation portfolio and this is now being used by operators.

Azure Inter-Party Management provides operators with real-time rating, translation, billing and settlement for next-generation services. It enables their service-provider clients to view data and business performance online and the operators themselves to set up real-time billing and online partner self-care. The launch date for the second part of the next-generation revenue-assurance portfolio will be announced shortly.

Azure’s end-to-end revenue-assurance product portfolio for current-generation networks includes Data Integrity, Wholesale and Interconnect Billing, International Settlements, Fraud Management, Mediation Management, Translation and Rating, Event Integrity and Route Optimisation.

John Cronin, president and CEO of Azure Solutions, said: “To attract funding from companies of the calibre of Doughty Hanson and Intel Capital is a real endorsement for Azure. Part of the funding will be used to maintain the leadership position of our award-winning revenue-assurance portfolio for circuit-switched, IP and 3G networks. We will also increase our global support for existing and new customers, especially tier 1 operators such as BT, KPN, Vodafone, Telenor and Verizon, amongst others, that we are already working with.”

Jerry Ennis, said: “We identified Azure as the star performer in the revenue-assurance market. It already has a broad base of tier 1 carriers, excellent technology and a strong management team. This is a great time to be involved with the company, as there will be many opportunities with operators needing to maximise revenues through next-generation networks and services.”

Damien Callaghan, investment manager at Intel Capital, said: “For next-generation networks to be commercially viable, revenue assurance is vital. We see Azure as a key company in this. The provision of cost-effective, high bandwidth and improving mobility to computing and communications users is of great interest to Intel. The importance of Azure ’s role in making this happen has been recognised by the company’s peers through industry awards.”

Azure Solutions Inc.