Jangl, a Pleasanton, Calif-based startup that launched with much fanfare and lot of promise, ran out of time, and is headed towards an ignominious end. Venturebeat had first reported that Jangl was looking to sell itself earlier this week.
Jangl is not the only VoIP company to nosedive. We have heard from reliable sources that TalkPlus, San Mateo, Calif., company, is going nowhere fast. Michael Toepel, who was the CEO, recently left after the company failed to get new investment to keep it going.
Jeff Black, the founder, is overseeing the operations but there is little hope for this company, which wants to sell its intellectual property. The company had raised about $5.5 million from Menlo Ventures back in 2006. I left Jeff a voice mail but so far no word from him. John Todd, CTO of the company, is still with TalkPlus.
Back to Jangl! Cerda along with Jangl co-founder Ben Dean and three other Jangl employees is joining Jajah, one company that seems to be defying the odds, mostly because it changed its overall strategy. “Jangl will sell its assets and there are people who are interested in this,” Cerda said. “The company was finding its groove in the marketplace, but our investors thought it wasn’t enough for us to keep going, and decided not to fund us.” Jangl had raised about $9 million in VC funding from Storm Ventures, Labrador Ventures and Cardinal Ventures.
Jangl had started out by creating a bidirectional number that kept the privacy of the caller and call recipient intact. It later changed its tactics and tried to use social networking widgets to grow its customer base, in the hope that it could make up the cost of free calling on advertising. The only place where it found success was amongst the online dating sites, where it allowed people to make anonymous voice calls to each other.
Cerda explains the rise and fall of Jangl on his blog.
And in our opinion it needed another 18-24 months worth of runway to realize its fullest potential; but at the end of the day every venture capitalist has their own coefficient of venture. To that end, we took company forward into an M&A process. Unfortunately with much bigger things happening in the marketplace it turned out to be the worst time in a few years to be selling.
That last line should send a shudder down the spine of Web 2.0/Voice 2.0 entrepreneurs who are looking to sell and get out of Dodge.
16 comments so far
10:58 PM PT
Another company that tried to make money with free private phone numbers was http://numbr.com. I really liked their service. Alas, their free private number thing is gone (it cost them $.05 a minute, so no surprise) but the company is hanging in, doing enterprise level phone stuff.
Nice guys, I hope they make it work. Maybe one day the free private numbers will return.
1:44 AM PT
[...] bullet point # 9 of my VoIP Predictions for 2008 was unfortunately right. After Jangl, it seems that TalkPlus is going to be shut down / sold soon. We have heard from reliable sources [...]
3:30 AM PT
[...] When Jajah’s dropped me a note last night to say that Michael Cerda and Ben Dean of Jangl were joining the Jajah team, I knew something was up. The founder CEO of a company doesn’t just quit — either the company is going under or there’s been a massive capital raise and the new investors decide they want their guy running the show. I was at dinner with an investor, but this morning it turns out to have been the former. [...]
5:35 AM PT
[...] the stories about the demise of Jangle (Luca and Om) run through the blogosphere, and questions about the bursting of the Voice 2.0 bubble are raised, [...]
6:35 AM PT
Some ventures go that way.
9:26 AM PT
Jangl & TalkPlus Spell VoIP Troubles Ahead?…
Om over at GigaOm writes that Jangl was looking to sell itself earlier this week and is "headed towards an ignominious end" and adds that Talkplus "is going nowhere fast". I wrote a detailed write-up on TalkPlus, interviewing TalkPl…
9:37 AM PT
[...] chuckle to many bloggers and analysts. Now, with the news yesterday of Jangl’s woes and Om’s report today adding Talkplus to the list of struggling Voice 2.0 companies, we’re seeing another wave of “I told you so” from around the [...]
10:19 AM PT
[...] Om over at GigaOm writes that Jangl was looking to sell itself earlier this week and is "headed towards an ignominious end" and adds that Talkplus "is going nowhere fast". I wrote a detailed write-up on TalkPlus, interviewing TalkPlus CEO Jeff Black at ITEXPO and my biggest fascination was how the supposedly reverse engineered Skype. I wrote, "One final interesting thing we talked about at ITEXPO is that TalkPlus has built their own Skype gateway. In fact, when pressed further, Jeff mentioned they actually reverse engineered Skype’s protocol. Although the Skype gateway isn’t part of TalkPlus’s launch today, Jeff explained that they have tested it in their labs and it’s working very well." [...]
1:27 PM PT
[...] the last couple days, there has been bad news for a couple Voice 2.0 startups, Jangl and TalkPlus. There are people commenting on what this [...]
4:34 PM PT
[...] 2: Another VoIP company, TalkPlus, may soon be exiting the business, according to GigaOM. The company’s chief executive, Michael Toepel, recently left the company after it failed to [...]
8:01 PM PT
Maybe we’re finally seeing what I expected all along. Only the “real” telecommunications providers with lots of real experience and know-how can succeed in this market. The Jangl’s and Ooma’s and all the other crazy mnemonics play around the edges with the small set of people who are willing to experiment with new “nifty” things for communications, and one-by-one go bust. Meanwhile, the experienced and legitimate telecommunications companies are able to figure out how to do things right, even with the use of VoIP for real telephone service.
Funny thing, I have a book on my shelf, published in 1976, called “The Future of AT&T”. I suspect that most everything said didn’t happen - who could have predicted Judge Green and divestiture. And in the late 1980’s, who would have thought that within 20 years that AT&T would be getting back together. The sooner the better, I say.
7:16 AM PT
@ Mike P
Haven’t read “The Future of AT&T,” but I was at an ad-supported telephony conference this week hosted by VooDoo Vox and they showed some early 90s videos that AT&T put out about the future. Amazingly accurate.
Of course, they were wrong about the company that would deliver that future. ;)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8
7:19 AM PT
Those loooking to replace the private call functionality should look at the dukaLINK widget from Jaduka. Its one of the featured apps on their free Jaduka Labs widget site and allows you to create private click and call HTML links. Not a true private number per se, but allows people to call you without you ever sharing your real number, so its close enough. Give it a look–I use it for Craigslist posts and it works great.
9:36 AM PT
Jajah is one company which is doing well in this VoIP based technology business. They recently partnered with Yahoo to offer their service for users of yahoo messenger. They acquire millions of users overnight from this Yahoo deal. Perhaps Jangl and other competitors where just too focussed on technology without realizing the importance of partnerships in business development.
10:30 AM PT
Latest word is that John Todd is joining Digium.
6:17 AM PT
[...] GIGAOM — May 7 — Michael Cerda, former CEO of Jangl along with the cofounder, Ben Dean and three other Jangl employees is joining Jajah. “The company was finding its groove in the marketplace, but our investors though it wasn’t enough for us to keep going, and decided not to fund us”, Cerda said. Jangl had raised about $9m in VC funding from Storm Ventures, Labrador Ventures and Cardinal Ventures. Cerda explains the rise and fall of Jangl on his blog. Jangl is not the only VoIP company to nosedive. We have heard from reliable sources that TalkPlus, is going nowhere fast. Michael Toepel, who was the CEO recently left, after the company failed to get new investment to keep going. FULL ARTICLE @ GIGA OM [...]
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