Akonix Nabs $11 Million

Akonix Nabs $11 Million: "Enterprise instant messaging gateway player Akonix Systems has $11 million in new financing to help it continue making a name for itself in the hotly competitive arena for business IM solutions. "
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In connection with the broadening interest in enterprise IM solutions, the cash injection also comes following what Akonix said was a record third quarter, in which it added more than 50,000 licensed customer seats and doubled revenue from the previous quarter.

At the same time, the new financing also continues the hot interest in enterprise IM solutions from the venture capital arena. Early this year IMlogic closed $14 million in new financing. In late 2002, FaceTime landed an undisclosed amount of new funds in November from Bank of America, bringing its total backing to more than $40 million.

SAD: The interesting parallel to follow for similar industry growth would be that of the early email infrastructure add-on vendors, those that provided SMTP gateways, security services, management tools, etc. Most of the add-on market products will eventually have to be features of the core IM platform so it will be interesting to see these companies adapt accordingly.