Jangl, VoIP company, may soon be sold

Jangl, a Silicon Valley Internet phone company that also offers VoIP services via widgets on the web, is looking to be sold, and it will announce more news “this week.”

VentureBeat first learned something was up last week, when we heard reports about employees from Jangl applying for other jobs. One includes the VP of marketing.

When we contacted the company again today, spokesman Tim Johnson confirmed that the company is looking to be sold, and that the company has received a number of offers. “We’ll have more news later this week,” he said.

He said Jangl executives last fall directed by the company’s board “to pursue acquisition opportunities in lieu of venture funding.”

This suggests the Jangl’s backers, which have pumped $9 million into the company beginning three years ago, saw the VoIP field as too competitive and too risky to make further investments. On the other hand, the company had enough money to honor its commitments to partners for quite some time. It will continue to do that, Johnson said.

The company has tried all kinds of tactics to find traction in the cut-throat world of free calls. It started by issuing you a disposable number, so that you could give out numbers to dates, for example, and avoid giving them your real number. It then moved to more fully embrace placing widgets on web sites, making it easy for you to make free calls over the Web. The company has continued to work on new initiatives, including a pre-roll ad platform for VoIP calls most recently.

Johnson did say he’s not aware that any final acquisition terms have been agreed upon.

As of right now, two engineering staff members have been let go, he said.