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Fon raises $13.5 million in funding round led by Atomico to put the US in its sights

Mike Butcher

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Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
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Fon has secured €10 million ($13.5 million) in a new funding round led by Atomico, the VC firm founded by Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype. The company markets wifi routers which turn domestic connections into a network of publicly accessible hotspots.

Coral Group and other existing Fon investors also contributed to the round which is designed to meet the surge in demand for WiFi from smartphone and tablet users, and to expand in the US and other markets. Previous rounds for the company, which was founded in 2006 by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky (who also founded Jazztel and Viatel), raised over €40m.

In Japan Fon has an agreement with SoftBank, the Japanese mobile operator, where Fon’s WiFi routers work with the iPhone to allow more access to broadband but crucially to reduce the load on its mobile network. It’s this model which is expected to be rolled out in other markets.Varsavsky said the company “could have done an outside round” but decided to keep it’s high profile investors on board.

Fon’s ‘Fonera’ routers let users connect to WiFi at Fon hotspots for free in exchange for sharing their Fon-powered WiFi at home. The company’s 802.11n WiFi routers broadcast two dedicated WiFi signals, one encrypted and private for the home user and one publicly accessible via password to registered members of the Fon community. It now has 3.35 million hotspots, a growth of 200% year-on-year, making it the biggest WiFi network in the world. Fon sold about 1.6 million routers in 2010 contributing, generating revenues of €28 million, up from €5 million in 2009.

Fon also builds technology directly into its telco partners’ CPEs, such as BT in the UK, MTS-Comstar Russia, SFR France and ZON Cable Portugal.

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  • TC

    That opening sentence is a real winner. Learn to write jackass.

    • ZZYZX

      I agree… in fact, I gave up on the rest of the article after attempting three times to decipher sentence #1.

    • ZZYZX

      I agree… in fact, I gave up on the rest of the article after attempting three times to decipher sentence #1.

    • slickrick

      i resent your profanity tc but man i just read that first sentence and it is pretty god awful. that sentence belongs in the hall of shame!

    • Anonymous

      Or how about this sentence: “It’s this model with is expected to be rolled out in other markets.”

      Obviously no proof-reading whatsoever.

  • http://topsy.com/eu.techcrunch.com/2011/02/16/fon-raises-13-5-million-in-funding-round-led-by-atomico-to-put-the-us-in-its-sights/?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2 Tweets that mention Fon raises $13.5 million in funding round led by Atomico to put the US in its sights — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by TechCrunch, Mike Butcher, LolCrunch, Karim Gargum, stephanie robesky and others. stephanie robesky said: RT @mikebutcher: Fon raises $13.5 million in funding round led by Atomico to put the US in its sights http://bit.ly/hW6aZP [...]

  • http://ohsugar.com.au/2011/02/16/fon-raises-13-5-million-in-new-round-to-expand-in-the-us/ Oh, Sugar! » Fon Raises $13.5 Million In New Round To Expand In The US

    [...] Read the rest of this entry » [...]

  • http://trendoloji.com/?p=1235 Fon olarak İngilizce için $ 13,5 Milyon Yeni Yuvarlak olarak Artırdı ABD

    [...] Read the rest of this entry » [...]

  • Joeskywalker

    Five years too late, imho

    • slickrick

      huh?

  • http://shoutreview.com/technology/fon-raises-13-5-million-in-new-round-to-expand-in-the-us/ Fon Raises $13.5 Million In New Round To Expand In The US | ShoutReview

    [...] Read the rest of this entry » [...]

  • Itnerd

    Mike Butcher just butchered the english language.

  • Tom Thwaite

    Just leave out the word “turns” from the first sentence for it to make sense. It’s not SO difficult….

  • Tom Thwaite

    Just leave out the word “turns” from the first sentence for it to make sense. It’s not SO difficult….

  • http://twitter.com/mikebutcher Mike Butcher

    Sorry for the misfire guys. Duly amended.

  • Yissnn

    I hope it gets as extended everywhere as in Japan and the UK. All these protected wifi signals or expensive hotspots everywhere make me mad. Ideally we should be able to connect to any wifi in the world!

  • Paul

    Am suprised by the numbers. Nothing personnal against Fon, But I do not know anyone in France or elsewhere using it?

    • Sloanapy

      Hello !

      Fon est utilisé en France ! et en français dans le texte car la communauté des utilisateurs nomades apprécie la démarche de nos amis espagnols qui ont été les premiers à favoriser le partage de connexions.
      In english : french people knows and uses Fon !

  • http://www.yolao.com/1987.html 公共Wifi热点公司Fon获1350万投资 | 优酪网

    [...] /via [...]

  • http://www.ledz.fr/fon-raises-13-5-million-in-funding-round-led-by-atomico-to-put.php Fon raises $13.5 million in funding round led by Atomico to put … | Vente en ligne de Led

    [...] the original here:  Fon raises $13.5 million in funding round led by Atomico to put … Cette entrée a été publiée dans Non classé, avec comme mot(s)-clef(s) 13-5-million, atomico, [...]

  • http://www.gigle.net/fon-recibe-13-5-millones-de-dolares-en-una-nueva-ronda-de-financiacion/ Fon recibe 13.5 millones de dólares en una nueva ronda de financiación | Gigle.net

    [...] ronda de financiación en la que han participado Coral Group y otros inversores de Fon, ha sido liderada [...]

  • http://www.wanjugu.com/articles/fon-wifi.html 玩聚谷公共Wifi热点公司Fon获1350万投资»玩聚谷

    [...] /via 发表评论 | Trackback 目前还没有任何评论. 您必须在 登录 后才能发布评论. 从传统媒体一路走来，在新媒体和电子商务的大潮中日积月累，关注社会化应用和移动互联，挖掘电子商务最有价值的部分 [...]

  • http://periodismomultimediaurjc.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/varsavsky-se-lanza-a-la-conquista-del-nuevo-mundo/ Varsavsky se lanza a la conquista del Nuevo Mundo « Periodismo Multimedia

    [...] siguiente paso en su expansión para por Estados Unidos. Para ello han recibido una nueva inversión de 10 millones de euros (13,5 millones de dólares). Atomico es la empresa de capital riesgo que ha hecho el desembolso. Esta compañía está [...]

  • Joel

    Has anyone been able to get onto a FON network? I supposedly have unlimited FON access through by BT Broadband service but have yet to be able to connect to a network?

  • http://www.quora.com/Is-Fon-still-going-strong#ans422365 Is Fon still going strong? – Quora

    [...] WiFi with Fon: The Wi… Also we recently closed a round of funding for 13.5 million:http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/02…I think this qualifies as still going strong in a hot market :-) 12:01amView All 0 CommentsCannot add [...]

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