Exclusive - Mobile communications startup fring, fresh off the heels of launching group video calls for smartphones, has raised a Series C round of financing from existing investors, TechCrunch has learned.

The amount that was raised is actually not being disclosed, but sources close to the company tell us that fring secured another $10 million in venture capital, bringing its total of funding raised to well north of $30 million.

We were also told fring’s annual revenue run rate currently hovers around $10 million – the company makes money from advertising and voice calling service fringOut.

The new financing will be used to further expand the company’s product portfolio, and to bring its video communication suite to a range of new devices and segments of users.

Fring says it is currently adding more than 1 million activations a month (with more than 40% of new users located in the USA), powering upwards of 10 million video call minutes per month and more than 100 million voice minutes per month.

Fring’s earlier backers participated in the Series C round, including North Bridge Venture Capital, Pitango Venture Capital and Veritas Venture Partners.

The startup’s biggest competitor is obviously Skype, which, as I’m sure you know by now, was recently acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in cash.

Exclusive: Nimbuzz, a popular mobile communication service provider, has been asked by Skype to remove support for all Skype services, effective October 31st.

The startup will be announcing the news to its 30 million or so registered users later today.

Nimbuzz sees the decision to ask for the removal of support for Skype services in line with the communication software giant’s “mandate to disconnect with all third-party VoIP services ahead of its impending IPO“.

Skype, in turn, calls bullshit and claims Nimbuzz simply stopped communicating with them quite recently, following several months of discussions about Nimbuzz’ compliance with its API Terms of Use and End User Licence Agreement.

Update: Nimbuzz has posted about the situation on its blog.

You may remember that the exact same thing happened between Skype and Nimbuzz rival fring back in July. Skype at the time also stated that it tried to resolve a dispute with fring amicably for a considerable amount of time, only to arrive at a point where they saw themselves forced to threaten legal action over “misuse of Skype software”.

From October 31st onwards, Skype users will also find themselves unable to chat, send messages or call their contacts on Nimbuzz, and vice versa. Nimbuzz points out users will remain free to communicate with their contacts using other VoIP/SIP, instant messaging services and social networks, including Facebook, Yahoo, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, Twitter, MySpace, ICQ and others.

In both the Nimbuzz and fring case, of course, it’s their millions of users who also use Skype that are the ones getting screwed over here. It’s also telling that Skype has started requesting the bigger third-party service providers to remove support for Skype services very recently, while both fring and Nimbuzz have offered Skype support for many years …

Said Evert Jaap Lugt, CEO of Nimbuzz:

Skype’s decision is unfair to its own and our users. People want to choose how they communicate and to be able to make calls and send messages, regardless of service, social network, device or operator network. Nimbuzz gives them the freedom to do so, Skype does not.

For what it’s worth, Skype responded with this canned statement:

“Skype has been in discussions with Nimbuzz regarding our concern and belief they were using Skype’s software in ways which it was not designed for, in a breach of our API Terms of Use and End User Licence Agreement.

Skype offered to meet Nimbuzz and discuss the issue however we have not heard back from them since our last correspondence to them in early August. As we have said before, Skype encourages openness and supports developers to build products that work with the Skype platform.”

Coincidentally, both Nimbuzz and fring recently started offering their own paid VoIP services to users (NimbuzzOut and fringOut, respectively), so my educated guess is that that’s the real reason why Skype is singling out these companies in particular (for now).

For all its popularity, competitor eBuddy does not offer support for Skype services and, as far as I know, never has.

Nimbuzz is not a small player in the mobile messenger / VoIP space either, any way you look at it. The startup recently announced that it has surpassed 150 million downloads and has 30 million registered users across all major mobile operating systems. Moreover, Nimbuzz claims 3.65 billion mobile voice minutes have been logged over the past year.

The company has raised $25 million to date, and one of its shareholders is Naspers / MIH Group, the multinational media group which boasts investments in Tencent, Mail.ru, Facebook investor DST and other notable industry players.

Time will tell if both fring and Nimbuzz have strong enough offerings, and loyal enough users, to stand their ground against the many alternatives, no longer bearing in-app Skype support. It will also be interesting to see if Skype will move to demand more third-party clients to remove support for its services in the future.

We’ll keep you posted.

Late last week, mobile communication services provider fring released an updated iPhone app that enabled iPhone 4 owners to engage in unrestricted 2-way video calling over Wi-Fi or 3G internet with other iPhone, Android or Symbian devices. This garnered a lot of attention, mainly because Apple’s native FaceTime application works only over Wi-Fi and between iPhone users.

Hours after its release, the company said it saw a huge spike in video calling that it was forced to “temporarily reduce support” to Skype, a third-party provider it has long supported.

Now, they no longer have to worry about that extra network strain, as fring says Skype has apparently blocked fring and threatened legal action against the startup.

In a press release issued moments ago, fring says that it is thus being forced to stop its 4 years of Skype interconnectivity, referring to the move as an anti-competitive ambush. They go further than that in the complementary blog post, calling them out for being ‘cowards’:

They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards.

Needless to say, we are very disappointed that Skype, who once championed the cause of openness is now trying to muzzle competition, even at the expense of its own users.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience Skype has caused you.

We’ve contacted Skype and are awaiting an official response from the company.

Update: a Skype spokesperson tells us that they’ve been debating with fring about whether they operate in accordance with its terms of use and license agreements for some time now, and that these discussions were ongoing.

Surprisingly, Skype also claims the decision to no longer offer Skype interconnectivity was entirely made by fring and that they had nothing to do with it. Fring disputes this and say Skype demanded them not to restore access.

The company’s spokesperson emphasized that they encourage developers to build products that work with Skype so long as they’re in accordance with its various licenses, and that they are keen on enforcing its terms when developers do not comply with them.

Something tells me this won’t be the end of this particular story.

Update 2: Skype just put up a blog post from its legal chief Robert Miller:

An hour or so ago, Fring reported on its blog that we had blocked their access to Skype. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue.

Fring was using Skype software in a way it wasn’t designed to be used – and in a way which is in breach of Skype’s API Terms of Use and End User License Agreement. We’ve been talking with Fring for some time to try to resolve this amicably.

However, over time, Fring’s mis-use of our software was increasingly damaging our brand and reputation with our customers. On Friday, for example, Fring withdrew support for video calls over Skype on iOS 4 without warning, again damaging our brand and disappointing our customers, who have high expectations of the Skype experience.

We actively encourage developers to build products that work with Skype, acting, of course in accordance with our various API licences. At the same time, Skype will rigorously protect our brand and reputation, and those developers that do not comply with our terms will be subject to legal enforcement.

In this case, however, there is no truth to Fring’s claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.

Last week, Fring took their first step into the video calling space by bringing Fring/Skype video support to a handful of Nokias. Not looking to let the momentum fizzle, Fring has already released their next video-enabled app — this time for the iPhone.

Alas, the iPhone lacks a front facing camera. Two-way video conferencing would be a bit awkward with one person having to rotate the handset every time they wanted to talk. As a result, video chat support on the iPhone Fring app has been watered down a bit, allowing for incoming video only. It’s not quite as fancy – but there’s not much that could be done with the current hardware set up. (Psst, Apple – time to add a front facing camera.)

You can check out the new video-enabled iPhone app here: iTunes Link

TechCrunch also covered the new update here.

Big caveat for starters: the camera on the iPhone 3GS is located on the back, which is handy for recording videos of people and locations in front of you but of course makes it impossible for you to point the camera at your own face while still being able to see the screen (unlike Nokia N Series phones for instance).

Thus, the latest version of fring’s iPhone app may well integrate video calling, but it’s only for incoming streams – which the startup acknowledges in the press release.

Its application for selected Nokia Symbian S60 devices, however, does two-way video calling.

The tool is designed to work for video calls between both fring and Skype contacts, but the new feature most definitely failed to deliver in my own personal experience at first. After trying to set up video calls both with a friend on Skype and someone from the company over fring, I found that calls were dropped automatically after only half a second. Two calls and multiple chat sessions with fring’s engineering team later, we found that – while my settings are hardly exotic – the configuration of my WiFi access point prevented me from handling incoming video calls using the fring application.

The company swiftly solved the problem of the blocked connection, and after rebooting my access point I successfully accepted an incoming video call from a fring engineer who was using his Nokia N97 camera and phone. It – finally – worked like a charm.

Do you have an iPhone, iPod Touch and are you near a WiFi access point, or do you have one of the supported Nokia devices, which also works over 3G?

Give it a whirl (iTunes link) and let us know if it works for you.

With fring, users can make free VoIP calls over Skype, MSN, Google Talk and via hundreds of SIP providers. The app also supports live chatting through ICQ, Yahoo, and more, and also boasts support for Twitter.

Fring on Android works over 3G, GPRS or WiFi connection.

Frankly, I’m surprised it took fring so long to come out with an app for Android. Rivals Meebo, Nimbuzz and eBuddy have long been available for the platform, so that gave its main competitors quite a head start and makes it way harder for them to acquire new users.

When I asked about the apparent delay, fring CEO Avi Shechter responded with:

Fring is the first [app on Android] to do free VoIP with Skype. We didn’t want to post a limited version with messaging only like all others but to provide full fring experience. Until now, Symbian and iPhone are the leading platforms and we’re focusing on higher-end devices where the experience is better, not like on low-end J2ME devices.

Israel-based fring has raised $23 million from multiple venture capital firms, most recently securing a Series C round of financing from North Bridge Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Veritas Venture Partners and VenFin Limited.

The eBuddy application for Google’s open mobile OS is now available for free on the Android Market, and users can thus benefit from a single ID to chat with their friends on third-party communication platforms such as Facebook, Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ and more.

No Skype chat yet, which is a bit of a bummer, but apparently the startup is looking to add that functionality in their mobile clients in addition to all the other ones currently supported. I wonder which startup will be the first to bring Skype chat to Android, since neither Meebo nor eBuddy currently support it and both Nimbuzz and fring, competitors that do support Skype IM through their mobile clients, have yet to make their way to the open platform.

What I like about the eBuddy application is that it has the ability to run in the background, so when you receive a phone call the IM service will keep running and even reconnect you automatically when the internet connection is lost. If you maintain multiple friend lists on instant messaging tools, eBuddy neatly organizes all your contacts in one list so you don’t even need to think about which third-party service you should be connecting to, and lets you seamlessly jump from one chat conversation to the next.

On a sidenote: I can’t grasp why Android Market doesn’t offer a search function on its regular website – only on mobile – but if you ever want to look for applications that are available on Android you might want to check out Cyrket.com. The eBuddy app is listed here.

I got eBuddy, which is backed by a healthy €11.5 million (which currently converts to approximately $15.6 million), to share some numbers to get a feel of the traction it’s getting in the market, and came away fairly impressed.

These are the numbers they pitched me: 20 million mobile downloads of the J2ME mobile client since its launch in June 2007, 5+ million unique monthly mobile users on eBuddy Mobile, and with almost 14 million downloads of eBuddy Mobile Messenger on GetJar the top ranked mobile program on the platform.

Stellar upwards-pointing trends indeed, but this type of hockey stick growth is of course no guarantee that all these new users will be efficiently monetized over the long run. Only time will tell if eBuddy finds a way to turn its successful product into a profitable business.

The actual amount raised was not shared, but we’re told that the third round is pretty much on par with the Series B round the company closed in August 2007 (estimated at $12 million when we reported it, but more in the vicinity of $10 million according to information we received later) and that it’s “most definitely not a downround”.

Fring markets an entirely free, ad-supported mobile application that allows users to engage in Web-based social activities, including VoIP calling, instant messaging and social networking. The startup says it intends to use the extra funding to make the app compatible with more mobile environments (Android, anyone?), support more Web-based community services, introduce a couple of new features and make some usability improvements across the board.

When the economy started crumbling last Fall, fring let go 20% of its workforce, although at the time it stated revenues were actually on the upside but it needed to cut costs to extend its runway through 2009.

The company is up against a slew of well-funded startup rivals, including Nimbuzz, Truphone and eBuddy, but also increasingly against Skype, which is eyeing the mobile handset market more and more.

Of course, the operators won’t be jumping up and down from joy over the news.

The first Nokia device to get the Skype integration will be the N97, beginning in Q3 of 2009, followed by (unnamed but reportedly high-end) N-series devices. Leveraging N97’s WiFi and 3G connectivity, users will be able to communicate with Skype-to-Skype voice calls, as well as make mobile and landline Skype calls at reasonable prices. We should note that Sony Ericsson already has some sort of solution for Skype by offering a ‘panel’ for the app on its Xperia X1 device (which runs Windows Mobile 6.1), and Skype already had a mobile ‘lite’ version in beta which works fine on compatible LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson phones.

Bringing Skype’s internet calling app on-board is one thing, but I am more excited about the presence management. The fact that the application will tap into your contact list to see who else is online or not, and enable you to chat with your friends and co-workers either by voice or text instantly, is a powerful feature.

But what does this mean for those mobile VoIP startups for whom one of the prime reasons of existence in the first place is supporting Skype functionality on mobile handsets, like fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone?

I got in touch with executives at all three startups to get a reaction on the news. Unsurprisingly, they call the move a validation of their services and are confident they won’t be pushed aside any time soon.

Tobias Kemper, Head of Communications at Nimbuzz, says the fact that Skype will come pre-installed on mobile devices is actually going to help normalize the use of VoIP applications (and particularly Skype) and thus boost their own growth. He also added that the integrated approach of Nimbuzz, which combines a variety of voice and text chat services into one app, is still in demand.

Geraldine Wilson, CEO of Truphone, says much of the same by declaring that this will only increase the awareness and uptake of these kinds of VoIP applications on mobile, which is good for Truphone too. She also cites the interoperability with Skype in combination with support for other communication services to be a big advantage for their users.

I’ll update this post with fring’s view as soon as it gets in, but you should also read up on what iSkoot is doing by moving beyond Skype for mobile phones with the release of a more general application.

I agree that bringing Skype to a select number of Nokia devices isn’t going to ‘kill’ any of the service providers I mentioned, and the aggregation of communication services is still a very good selling point in a world were people are connected through multiple social networks and instant messaging clients. That said, for the VoIP part it won’t get any better than having Skype pre-installed on a phone that links up your contacts to the application instantly. While companies like fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone are scrambling to turn their fast-growing legion of users into a profitable business, Skype has more runtime and more leverage to push free internet calling to mobile phone users.

But as I mentioned before, the carriers are not going to be happily standing on the sidelines as things progress.

Fring users (also referred to as fringsters) are now able to fire up streamed music radio channels, including their own Last.fm library, tag favourites, ban disliked tracks, view album artwork and basically take their Last.fm music account mobile. In addition to getting those features into the client, fringsters can also opt to view in real-time what their contacts are currently listening to, with the help of a friends list embedded into the Last.fm add-on.

Like Last.fm’s own Android application, which it introduced just last week, the add-on can be run in the background enabling users to listen to streamed music channels while they’re using other fring features.

Third parties can built add-ons on top of fring using its API, for which you can find more information here.

The Israeli company, which recently laid off 20% of its workforce but continues to surge with on average 400,000 new downloads per month, has made it public that they’ve raised 3 rounds of financing so far, although they’re only disclosing two rounds of funding amounting up to $13 million for now. Although they’ve recently started showing ads to mobile users, the jury is still out if there’s enough sustainability in the business model for the service to keep them alive.

Shechter also says Fring has recently raised a third round of financing, but declines to specify the amount or investors yet. Fring had raised $13 million over two previous rounds of financing.

Fring recently inked a deal with a European mobile carrier, Mobilkom Austria, and says they’re seeing 400,000 new downloads and activations per month, up from 100,000/month a year ago. They’re also trying out advertisements in the service.

Fring is essentially a mobile VoIP / chat service provider that works on the iPhone and any device running Windows Mobile or Symbian, with technology that enables users to make free calls using the Fring service itself, Skype, Live Messenger, Google Talk, and other communication services.

Up until now, the chat functionality was completely ad-free, but now Fring will gradually start rolling out banner display ads, beginning with a small number of randomly selected users.

From the Fring blog:

We wanted to give you the heads-up, as you may soon see small clickable advertising banners in the fring chat window, beneath the chat itself. Clicking the ad will open your browser and take you to the advertiser’s site; you may even find extra special offers, cool promos & other nice surprises behind the click from time to time And, more clicks mean happy advertisers; and happy advertisers mean more resources for us to develop cool new stuff for you to play with in fring!

The beta version of Fring was made publicly available in January 2007, and is now being used by millions of users across the globe. With (at least) $10 million in venture funding, the company was bound to come up with a monetization effort for all those users soon. Unlike competitors such as Jajah and Truphone, Fring is committed to keeping the costs of calling as low as possible and will try to make up for that revenue by slapping ads on chat screens.

(Thanks to Harel Schattenstein for the tip)

After 6 months of not-quite-official availability for those of us with jailbroken iPhones, Fring, a free mobile Voice-over-IP service (VoIP), has made its way to the App Store. With that, a day that some said would never come has arrived: Skype calls can now be made on the iPhone, no hacks required.

Beyond the Skype functionality (which I imagine would be its most popular use), Fring also lets you chat (and call, where appropriate) friends over MSN, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo, Twitter, ICQ, and of course, Fring’s own service.

Back at the iPhone SDK event March, Steve Jobs stated that there would be no blockade on VoIP applications be it that calls could only be made over WiFi. Other VoIP applications, such as Truphone, made their way out within a few weeks of the SDK’s availability – unfortunately, they only offered support for their own services. With a huge chunk of VoIP users (and, in turn, the other VoIP users they’d be calling) already dedicated to one of the popular PC based services, this wasn’t an optimal solution.

Even with these other VoIP applications available, naysayers feared Skype would never be allowed. If Apple didn’t have some reason block it, AT&T would — or so groupthink might have lead us to believe. With this release, the debate is over – so go grab Fring from the App Store.

Bummed out because the N78 doesn’t offer VoIP compatability right out of the box? Fear not – Fring has got you covered. Apparently using their own VoIP client rather than the Nokia-made client (which Nokia decided not to build into the latest N-series devices) required by other services, Fring has added support for both the N78 and the N96.

If you’ve got an N78 or by some sort of trickery already own an N96, you can grab Fring here.

Fring has a thing for Nokia as of late, it seems. It wasn’t too long ago that they added N810 support; then two days ago, they added support for the Nokia E71. Now they’ve gone and added the Nokia E66 to the list. I’d point out that there are other handsets Fring can be adding support for, but it seems like they’ve already got most of them covered.

If you’re looking for a way to Skype, MSN, ICQ, Google Talk, SIP, Twitter, AIM or Yahoo IM on your E66, head over to Fring’s download page.

While most iPhone users are stuck with an iBrick this morning as Apple’ servers can’t complete the last step of the upgrade process, those of us smart enough to take the unofficial upgrade route 24 hours ago are happily trying out new App Store Apps. This morning I turned my iPhone into a VoIP phone by installing the new Truphone iPhone app (Truphone company profile).

One of the iPhone 2.0 restrictions that is unfortunate is the fact that VoIP applications aren’t allowed to use the cell/data connection – all that 3G bandwidth could be put to great use. But VoIP apps are allowed on the phone and can use Wifi when it’s available.

While at first it seems that the fact these apps can’t tap into the 3G stream is a real problem, in fact even the allowed activity, VoIP over Wifi, is extremely useful. For example – AT&T mobile coverage at my house/office is very bad, so I rarely use my iPhone for calls there. Instead I just pick up my landline (which is a Vonage VoIP phone). With VoIP over Wifi I can still use my mobile phone to make calls.

I installed the Truphone app this morning and registered online. Calls to any landline anywhere in the world are just 6 cents per minute, and you get a $4 credit to start when you first download the app. Truphone accesses your contact list to allow for one click calls in the same way as normal calls. The differences you’ll notice v. normal cell calls: you must have a Wifi connection to make calls, you can’t receive calls, if a normal voice call comes in your Truphone call is immediately terminated (this really sucks), you can’t use the speakerphone and your “favorite” numbers aren’t imported.

One really excellent feature is the fact that when you call someone, they see your normal caller id.

The video below shows the call process and I also play a voicemail I left through the app – the sound quality was excellent.

http://qik.com/player2.swf?streamname=e76ade7e06b94a69a244cbbb0f1fd039&vid=127187&playback=false&polling=false&user=techcrunch&displayname=TechCrunch&safelink=techcrunch&userlock=true&islive=&username=anonymous

What’s that $50+ million being used for? Cheap calls! Like Fring and a slew of others, Truphone allows free calls initiated from between Wifi/data enabled handsets and/or computers, or cheap VoIP-to-anywhere calls.

Truphone has a technology advantage that allows for better sound quality and longer battery life, but at the cost of easier carrier blocking relative to Fring. But they’re winning against carriers in court, so the blocking issue isn’t hurting them as much.

Notably absent from the funding announcement was any mention of cofounder Alexander Straub or previous investor Straub Ventures (the venture fund still lists Truphone as an investment, however). I’m betting there’s an interesting story there. (Update: see comment below from Straub, although I find it odd neither he nor his fund were mentioned in the press release.)

Update2: TechCrunch UK has more on the pricing structure Truphone is using to attack carriers.

We’ve reported on Fring before at CG so there’s not much need to go into details about what they do, but if you’re new to the game then check here for details. Today, Fring launched an iPhone app that runs on jailbroken devices and seems to work pretty well based on the video provided by Fring. Free VoIP calls and IM on your iPhone. Sounds good to me.

Grab it here.

via TC

It is now live. (Warning: You will need to Jailbreak your iPhone to make it work). The Fring blog has more details or you can download it at the Fringcubator. With so many minutes on most cell phone plans, most people won’t be using this to make local calls. But it could come in handy for international calls or simply keeping up with IM on the go. The latter is really the killer app.

And here’s a video of how it works: