Columbia’s NexT investment

Now here’s a nice show of confidence: A fat US $25 million investment from Columbia Partners Private Capital, the private investment group of Washington, D.C.-based Columbia Partners

L.L.C. NexTone were the recipients of the investment, a chunk of change that brings NexTone’s total private funding to US $92.5 million. Earlier venture investors in NexTone include One Equity Partners, BCE Capital, Core Capital, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, and Safeguard Scientifics.

Drawing in investors was the record year in bookings posted by NexTone in 2006. Thanks to its flagship IntelliConnect System, a suite of intelligent session management and interconnect products designed for VoIP and IP multimedia subsystem service providers, NexTone saw record numbers over the year and can now claim to carry more than fifty percent of the planet’s international VoIP traffic.

The NexTone PR department credits the firm’s success as “fueled by the rapid adoption of inter-carrier VoIP peering and enterprise SIP trunking.” According to NexTone numbers, Rapid growth is also growing among Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers that are moving VoIP implementations from the lab environment to production networks, and existing VoIP carriers building upon their wholesale service offering with SIP-based retail services.

And NexTone reminds the Chump’s readers of industry analyst group Infonetics Research’s statistics projecting worldwide service provider revenues for VoIP and IMS equipment to increase over twofold between 2005 and 2009, from US $2.5 billion to US $5.8 billion.

Columbia Partners Private Capital managing director Christopher Doherty stated upon news of the announcement that his firm had been quite “interested in participating in the enormous growth potential of the VoIP and IMS markets,” and saw in NexTone “an outstanding opportunity” to do so.

Columbia Partners Private Capital is the direct investment unit of Columbia Partners, L.L.C. Investment Management, a Washington, D.C.-based registered investment advisor managing over US $2.4 billion. The firm’s clientele includes Public, Taft Hartley, and corporate pension funds. With over US $200 million under management, Columbia Partners Private Capital makes structured finance investments primarily in privately held growth companies.

NexTone Communications flagship IntelliConnect System now works for more than 500 service providers and enterprises worldwide. The company is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md.