Ooma, home communications co., raises $12M

Updated

Ooma, a secretive Palo Alto, Calif. company that has labored for more than two years to produce a telecommunications product for the home, has raised $12M of an $18M Series B round, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week. Return backers include Worldview Technology Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the report said

Not mentioned, however, is the investment by Sean Parker, partner at the Founders Fund. Parker invested last year, a source tells VentureBeat.

The company raised $7.8 million in a first round about two year ago, but has struggled as the fast-moving telecommunications space makes it hard to make a bet on a given technology, or at least so we’re told. We’re hearing it wants to build an IP technology on top of a home’s existing phone network — so you can say, listen to a voice message left on a kitchen answering machine on any device around the home. Again, that’s what we’re hearing, but we’re trying to confirm. We’ve contacted the company, and will update when/if we hear back.

The company lost its Michael Cerda two years ago, as well as its head of engineering, Spero Koulouras.

Founder Andrew Frame is apparently back at the helm.

Update: We’ve since been able to confirm the funding round with Sean Parker, of the Founders Fund. He said he took a board seat at Ooma, and confirmed that the company’s strategy is still secret but that he invested in the company because it has a promising team (it has changed somewhat, and we may be able to publish details soon), and an “irresistibly clever product idea.”