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Venture Capital News: Firespotter Labs Gets Hot with $15M Series B

2012-07-19
PLEASANTON, CA, Start-up founded by serial entrepreneur, Craig Walker, focuses on making complex telephony products easy to use. Andreessen Horowitz led the round.
Firespotter Labs today announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B financing led by Andreessen Horowitz. Existing investor, Google Ventures, also joined the round. Blake Krikorian, co-founder and former CEO of Sling Media, joins Wesley Chan, Partner at Google Ventures, and Craig Walker, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Firespotter Labs, on the board.

"Andreessen Horowitz has a wealth of knowledge and an impressive track record in advising industry-leading start-ups such as Skype, GitHub, Box, and Facebook," said Walker. "We are thrilled that Blake, one of the tech industry's most savvy executives, will join our board and help direct the course of telephony products such as UberConference."

"Craig is an accomplished serial entrepreneur in the communications industry, and he and his team are uniquely positioned to build the next generation of communications services," said Krikorian. "The communications space is changing dramatically and we're excited to be working with Firespotter to usher in those changes."

Firespotter Labs' first foray into the communications space was UberConference, the TechCrunch Disrupt 2012 Winner that puts a visual interface on a traditional audio conference call. Also developed at Firespotter Labs are food industry apps Nosh and NoshList, and the social rating app Jotly. The company will use its financing to expand its engineering team and develop its telephony-based product line.

"As the earliest investors in Firespotter, we are excited with the progress they have made, and the new products coming to market," said Chan. "We are delighted to have Andreessen Horowitz and Blake join the team, and look forward to working together as Firespotter extends its leadership in audio conferencing and broadens telephony services for users."

With over 15 years experience as an entrepreneur in the emerging telephony space, Walker was co-founder and CEO of GrandCentral, which was acquired by Google in July 2007 and went on to become Google Voice. Walker was also CEO of Dialpad Communications, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005 and became Yahoo! Voice.

About Firespotter LabsLaunched in 2011, Firespotter Labs is a start-up founded by serial entrepreneur Craig Walker, and focuses on making complex telephony products easy to use. Firespotter Labs is funded by Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures. To learn more about Firespotter please visit www.firespotter.com to learn more about UberConference please visit www.uberconference.com .
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