Open-Exchange takes $9M in second round

Investment round completed

Open-Xchange Inc., a provider of open source collaboration software has closed a Series B round of venture funding totaling $9 million, to further develop its software and continue expanding its business in the US, Europe and elsewhere. The company is headquartered in Tarrytown, New York, with R&D carried out in Germany, in Olpen and Nuremberg.

The round was led by eCAPITAL entrepreneurial Partners AG, a Munster, Germany-based, IT equity firm. Also participating were Munich-based BayBG, and existing investor, BayTech Venture Capital, also of Munich. Frank Hoelzle, managing partner at eCAPITAL, will join the Open-Xchange board of directors. Terms of the financing deal were not disclosed.

Built as open source software, Open-Xchange is an alternative to commercial email/collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, providing features like support for mobile email, document sharing, shared calendars and shared address books.

The company says that during 2008, it has increased it number of paid mailboxes to 8.4 million as a result of deals with US hosting companies 1&1 and Network Solutions, OVH, the leading hosting company in France and Hostpoint, Switzerland’s number one hosting company.

“We’re at a point of unprecedented growth in our company’s history and will use these funds to help us add another 10 million mailboxes next year,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange.

In September new versions of Open-Xchange software were announced for both hosted and in house implementations. The company also recently announced agreements with O3SIS and Funambol that enable Internet Service Providers, telcos and web hosting companies, as well as on-premise customers, to offer end users the ability to access email from mobile phones.

Open-Xchange raised $8.8 million in its first financing round from Business Angels and BayTech Venture Capital in 2006.