Sylantro Raises Another $11M

IP centrex vendor Sylantro Systems Corp. has raised $11 million in a secretive fifth round of funding.

While some of the company's executives were shy about even admitting the money exists, CEO Pete Bonee confirms that an "inside round involving all our existing investors" took place recently, though he adds that the company was hoping to keep it quiet. "We haven't done any PR around it," he says.

He says it was purely for "expansion purposes -- we're expanding the team. We have a number of large projects with key carriers on the go." (See Softbank Uses MSFT, Sylantro, Alcatel, Sylantro Land Unicom Deal, and Swisscom Picks Sylantro, Siemens.)

The details of the round are available only on VentureSource, a subscription service run by Dow Jones. According to the listing, the $11 million round takes Sylantro's total funding to just over $106 million since 1998.

But the company's value has gone down significantly since its $55 million round in October 2000, when the post-investment valuation was $255 million. Now it's $99.4 million.

But the company is profitable, though Bonee won't say how long the firm has been in the black. The CEO adds that an IPO is still very much part of Sylantro's plans, though he couldn't put a timescale on any public listing. Early last year the company said it was aiming to IPO by the end of 2005 or early 2006. (See Sylantro Ready to Garnish Public Markets.) Sylantro's chief rival is BroadSoft Inc. , which has IPO plans of its own. (See BroadSoft Edges Closer to IPO.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading