5 ms·
Xobni Closes $7 Million Series B Financing
- asnyder 18y agoI'm generally wary of Cisco, and hope it doesn't end up affecting Xobni negatively in the end. We used to use WebEx until CISCO bought them which bolstered them to jack up prices, fortunately, Citrix updated their GoToMeeting product, which is better and more cost effective solution than WebEx. Hopefully, something like this won't happen to Xobni, I would hate to see a $579 bill for an hour of xobni usage.
- jonknee 18y agoYes, that makes perfect sense. Because you don't like the prices of WebEx, Xobni is going to start (somehow) charging you by the hour. And not just by the hour, but for almost $600 an hour.
- wumi 18y agocongrats matt and adam (and the entire team)! excited to see what you guys do in 09
- bprater 18y agoJust out of curiosity, why does this get modded so high? A tech company takes investor money, great! But is it truly hackerous?
- Caligula 18y agoXobni is a YC company.
- pmjordan 18y agoA number of users here are YC "alumni" and presumably know the Xobni guys in one way or another. Even non-YC people (myself included) enjoy reading stories like this. It's just nice to follow people's success stories, particularly when you can relate to those people, and in this case, when they're also Hacker News users.
- fallentimes 18y agoAny time a Hacker News startup (YC or otherwise) kicks ass, it makes everyone feel like one of their own succeeded. It's awesome.
- redorb 18y ago11.4mm is an amazing amount of money to raise, congrats. This is one of the applications I think add real value to offline software; I just wonder how they deal with the pressure that Microsoft could duplicate the feature of search or otherh features in the next outlook... and this has to push the price (20mm wasn't enough from microsoft) - how much do they need now to accept the offer? - probably in the 100mm range eh?
- vaksel 18y agoespecially in this market
- steveplace 18y agoGOOG and MSFT were founded in similar market conditions.
- bigbang 18y agoYeah, but they didnt depend on the existance of another product(like Outlook).
- langer 18y agoTaking money from Cisco is a very smart move. Congrats on the round guys!
- cstejerean 18y agoI wish I knew why that is. Could you please elaborate?
- staunch 18y agoSpeculation: Cisco wanted to buy Xobni, but Xobni said they wouldn't sell for less than $too_much, so Cisco invested instead and will end up buying them later if they do well.
- parlin 18y agoCisco worries me in general.. Are they gonna be the real gate keepers or what? Like a sneakier low level Google.. Whats their market share for "delivering data packets"? Who needs country borders when you control all the routers ey! Congrats guys, and sorry for calling you XnobiXnob all these years!
- ALee 18y agoThat same logic would seem to apply for Microsoft wanting to invest. Perhaps MSFT had a chance, but they didn't like the valuation at all. If you read "High Stakes, No Prisoners" (a book that both founders of Xobni recommend), the author recommends getting non-VC Series B investors so that you don't have the same genetic pool (i.e. Series A VCs colluding with Series B). I think the more likely scenario is that this Series B is strategic for Cisco, wonder what they're cooking up.
- alex_c 18y agoCongrats, guys!
- ajkirwin 18y agoI'd so love to try Xobni, but, I am not forking out $110 for Outlook 2k7 for the privilege of doing so. :/
- jhancock 18y agobuilding a business on top of a customer base that has proven to open their wallets is a good move. Would you rather be trying to pry money out of people that think email is not worth $110? I am a mac user, so its not an option for me. But I were still on Windows, I would pay for Outlook as the alternatives are significantly less interesting.
- mattmaroon 18y agoOr just do what I do, get a hosted Exchange email service. Then they give you a copy for free. You could cancel after one month and get a copy for $8 if you don't want to keep it.
- e1ven 18y agoJust to be pedantic, this is normally against the ToS of the hosting company, and violates the license that comes with Outlook. If you're going to pirate it, so be it, no one is going to stop you, but going through the 1 month registration doesn't really change the moral or legal issues involved. For instance- https://www.mailstreet.net/exchange/outlook_order_1.asp?SOURCE=+&RESELLERID=&PROMO_CODE= https://www.mailstreet.net/exchange/outlook_order_1.asp?SOUR... "As a MailStreet account holder in good-standing you may download or order Outlook 2007 media for use with the MailStreet service. You may install the software on each computer that you have MailStreet service with. If you do leave the MailStreet service you must uninstall the Outlook software or purchase a retail version from your regular software vendor. If you have multiple computers, you only need to order one copy of the software. "
- mattmaroon 18y agoYeah, you're right. Just pirate it.
- ahoyhere 18y agoThis seems like kept woman money, like a mash note. I can't imagine what they need with this much money, so it seems to me to just further inflate their evaluation to make them unacquirable by anyone else. Except MS, of course, with more money than god, but... Xobni could be reproduced by Microsoft for less than their alleged $20m offer, too. Even with their lumbering corporate inefficiencies. I don't know about you, but I don't look at massive funding rounds as success. They're not exactly debt, but they're not exactly your money, either.