 Bob Goodman, Bessemer |
Intucell is only four years old and it was founded by two entrepreneurs, Rani Wellingstein and Ido Susan. It became a valuable company with relatively little outside capital. In 2011, Bessemer Venture Partners invested $6 million in Intucell. It was the only firm in that financing round, so today's news is a big win for them.
Intucell helps wireless cell towers talk to one another and prevent dropped calls, even in packed areas like Manhattan and San Francisco. AT&T partnered with Intucell soon after the Bessemer investment, and the results were "immediate," says Bessemer's Bob Goodman.
Goodman led the investment for Bessemer. He tells Forbes the company began generating revenue early on, and Bessemer's stake in the company was never diluted.
AllThingsD explains why it makes sense for Cisco to drop half-a-billion on Intucell:
First Intucell does business with wireless service providers that are part of Cisco’s bread-and-butter business. Second, it brings some software capabilities to the table that are fundamentally similar to the software-defined networking paradigm that has Cisco and other networking companies so excited these days. The idea is basically this: Software controls can define and dynamically control the size and configuration of a network, rather than swapping out hardware.