Infratel raises $3M for SMB cloud-telephony services

Seattle-based telephony-services provider expands to the cloud

Have you ever gone onto a local merchant's website that didn't have a phone number to contact them on? You're not alone. There are about 11 million small businesses in North America and Europe that have websites, but don't have phone numbers.

To address this issue, Infratel, a provider of cloud-telephony services, announced Tuesday that it's raised $3 million in funding to help small businesses with their phone solutions. 

The round comes from two European companies, Prostor Capital and Runa Capital, both firms with an understanding of telephony and cloud computing services. At the moment, Infratel, which was founded 10 years ago, has 1000 customers mostly on Infratel's original telephony management system, which isn't cloud based. The customers include regional banks, auto dealers, transportation companies and e-commerce companies. Last year, Infratel handled a billion customer minutes.

"We know what it takes for a small business to use telephony," said Bryan Goode, CEO of Infratel, in an interview. "What’s really important is that they have something that’s inexpensive and easy to use. Our solution starts at under $10 a month, which gets them a business number and call routing."

Alternative solutions typically don't provide call routing and Web-based voicemail, said Goode. Even solutions like Google Voice isn't tailored for businesses, said Goode. Google Voice doesn't allow you to ring multiple people and multiple extensions, he added.  

Infratel sells its SMB solution through channel partners. The funding will go in part to building out the channel relationships.

(Image source: ptgcomm.com)