Blue Jeans Network Raises $25 Million, Announces Web Browser Beta Program
Video conferencing company Blue Jeans Network announced on Wednesday that it has raised $25 million in a joint effort put forth by NEA, Accel and Norwest Venture Partners.
A large chunk of the newly raised capital will go into an advertising campaign meant to woo corporate customers away from their current enterprise solutions for video conferencing and towards the Blue Jeans Network.
The Blue Jeans Network already features a giant billboard in San Francisco and the goal will now be to woo firms away from pure audio conferencing to an affordable video conferencing network. Among its clients are Facebook and Match.com.
With its new funding in hand the Blue Jeans Network has now raised nearly $50 million.
Using it’s already earned funding the Blue Jeans Network recently launched a browser-based conferencing solution that is inter-operable with Skype, Google Hangouts, Polycom and Cisco. The Blue Jeans Network has also added the ability to create customized log-in pages and single sign-on for employees. In announcing its new $25 million in funding ($48.5 million through series C funding) the company also announced that the beta version of its browser program was now available for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.
The company’s newest and most affordable product to date is meant to end the reign of MCUs or Multipoint Control Units which can cost $250,000. Company’s using the Blue Jeans Network video-conferencing service can buy plans starting at just $299 per port (per party involved in each call).
Do you think the Blue Jeans Network will have a successful run? Considering its founder has already successfully sold two company’s to Cisco I’m not going to bet against it.
