Arbinet-thexchange Completes $35 Million Round of Private Equity Financing
NEW YORK – July 11, 2001 –
Arbinet-thexchange, today announced it closed a $35 million round of private equity funding from a syndicate of new and prior round investors. Investors cited Arbinet-thexchange’s track record of technical innovation and breadth of adoption by leading telecom carriers as key factors contributing to the success of the financing in a tight capital market.
The syndicate of investors was led by EnerTech Capital and includes significant participation from previous round investors, BancBoston Ventures, ComVentures, J.P. Morgan Partners, Van Wagoner Capital Management as well as new investors Advanced Equities, Entrepia Ventures and Nichimen Corporation. This investment fully funds the company’s business plan to profitability.
“We’ve focused on delivering value by solving problems for members in the voice business, which today provides the bulk of revenues for the world’s communications companies. Our team has created the liquid spot market for telecommunications services and designed and built the world’s most advanced and scalable system to automate minutes trading,” states Curt Hockemeier, Arbinet-thexchange President and CEO.
“As the industry has shifted its focus from spending to saving in the current economic climate, we have witnessed an acceleration of the numbers of new members coming on board. More significantly, existing members are seeing material cost and credit savings and are expanding their use of Arbinet-thexchange. This success has enabled us to secure the financing to continue to expand our business in this very difficult capital market.”
Bill Kingsley, Managing Director, EnerTech Capital notes, “Arbinet-thexchange has proven its ability to deliver the complete package in both the traditional voice business and the Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) business. They have designed and built complex, cutting-edge systems and generated impressive market acceptance and transaction volume. The management team has displayed strong focus and discipline and Arbinet-thexchange now clearly leads every aspect of the minutes trading space, enabling carriers to utilize their assets more effectively. We expect Arbinet-thexchange will successfully leverage this leadership into other areas of bandwidth trading as Internet Protocol technologies and industry behaviors evolve.”
About EnerTech Capital
EnerTech Capital is a $285 million private equity firm specializing in investment opportunities emerging from the reshaping of the energy and telecommunications industries. Through its extensive network of strategic partners and industry professionals, EnerTech Capital provides investment experience and domain expertise leading to successful companies in energy and telecommunications technologies, infrastructure, software and services. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.enertechcapital.com.
About Arbinet-thexchange
Two processes central to all telecom companies are selling access to their networks and routing
off-net traffic to destinations worldwide. Arbinet-thexchange has created the spot market and
designed and built the world’s most advanced system to automate anonymous minutes trading
between telecom companies. The world’s leading telecom carriers use this system to perform
dynamic least cost routing via the spot market to reduce their cost of service and expand
revenues by reaching new markets without extensive network build out.
Thexchange’s system automates sales and purchase order execution, complex calling code
matching, call routing to specific breakout destinations and manages the quality of service of
traded capacity. The system also handles the credit risk management, billing and commercial
settlement aspects of these transactions. Currently over 130 members are using thexchange to
process calls at well over a billion minute per year run rate. Arbinet-thexchange also develops
and distributes AXCESSCODESM international calling code breakouts, the standard market
reference tool. For more information, visit Arbinet-thexchange at www.thexchange.com.
120 Albany St. Tower II, Suite 450, New Brunswick, NJ
08901
phone: 732-509-9100, fax: 732-509-9101, website: www.arbinet.com
