Friday, September 19, 2008

NextPoint bought by Genband following funding

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

Seven weeks after raising $3.5 million of a projected $10 million round of private funding, and just eight months after the merger that formed the company, NextPoint Networks Inc. has been sold to Texas-based Genband Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

The deal is expected to allow NextPoint, which was formed in January through the merger of Billerica’s Reef Point Systems Inc. and Maryland’s NexTone Communications Inc., to compete in the growing wireless infrastructure space, and expands Genband’s list of competitors to include other local session border controller makers such as Burlington’s Acme Packet Inc. and Tewksbury’s Starent Networks Inc.

In a regulatory filing from late July, NextPoint reported raising $3.5 million of a $10 million round of funding from several investors, including New York-based One Equity Partners, Maryland-based American Capital Strategies and Washington, D.C.-based Core Capital. The company also raised $20 million at the time of the merger last January.