Kaazing pocket $17M as it looks at mobile possiblities

WebSocket acceleration startup sees the potential in growing out real-time communications

Kaazing, which develops and provides Web infrastructure software for companies to deliver scalable, real-time enterprise applications just announced a new $17 million round of funding.

Founded in 2007 to improve real-time and interactive communications over the Web, Kaazing firmly placed its business behind the HTML5 WebSocket protocol, which its founding team also helped design.

Previously, Kaazing had previously raised $5 million in two rounds of funding from TK. It is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with additional sales offices in New York City and London.

The Mountain View company plans to use the new funds to continue to expand and grow its customer base, particularly as it moves aggressively into the mobile market.

Kaazing is currently being used in many industries where high-performance Web communications are critical, including financial services, retail, gaming and entertainment, transportation, and mobile. Some of its customers include: BSkyB, Cantor Fitzgerald, ITRS, Southwest Airlines, and The Limited.

"In the past, to provide our clients with the most immediate and responsive services, we had to engineer very complex systems using a tremendous amount of client-server technology," said David Kim, Director of Development, Cantor Fitzgerald. "Kaazing allows us to deliver real-time, detailed, and responsive information on any platform, including mobile devices, but with a great deal less complexity and cost than before. This significantly differentiates us from our competition."

One of applications of the Kaazing services is to help media companies offering mobile applications to its users of real time sporting events. By developing the application to take advantage of the Kaazing platform, the company now has made it possible for viewers to bet on live events in real time from anywhere on their mobile devices. The application uses a fraction of the bandwidth and has 1/10th the overhead cost compared to other approaches.

"This new living Web will allow us to interact with our friends and colleagues at levels we couldn't have imagined five years ago, solve business problems that seemed impossible, accessing systems and share information at levels never seen before. The Web as we know it today was only the beginning, now the living Web will change everything," said Jonas Jacobi, co-founder and CEO of Kaazing.

With 50 employees, Kaazing is looking to grow its company by another 15-25 employees this year.

Recently, Kaazing brought on board Cisco veteran John Donnelly to assist in the growth of its sales and business development channels.