ThinkingPhones Calls Up $56M to Unify Communications in the Mobile Age

The world of business communications is changing fast with the proliferation of mobile devices, cloud-based software, and video systems. One Boston-area company has been evolving with those trends, and now it has a lot more money to expand.

Cambridge, MA-based Thinking Phone Networks has raised $56.7 million in a Series D financing led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Previous investor Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total raised to $89 million since its founding in 2006.

ThinkingPhones makes software that provides voice, video, text, and collaboration services to businesses from one place. The technology also connects those services with business apps for sales, customer relations, and resource planning. The company is trying to replace old, traditional enterprise phone systems with a mobile, cloud-enabled version that does more things.

So far it seems to be paying off: ThinkingPhones says it has hundreds of corporate customers, including CareerBuilder, Hanger, and the Cambridge Innovation Center. The company has about 230 employees and plans to more than double its workforce by the end of 2015.

I last wrote about ThinkingPhones last fall when Andy Ory, the co-founder and former CEO of Acme Packet (now part of Oracle), joined the company’s board of directors.

ThinkingPhones is led by co-founders Steve Kokinos and Derek Yoo, whom Ory said reminded him of himself and Acme Packet co-founder Patrick MeLampy, only 10 years earlier.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.