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

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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.”