Mobile technology investor m8 Capital has led a $16 million (£9.9 million) Series D financing round in American software maker Aylus Networks.

Mobile technology investor m8 Capital has led a $16 million (£9.9 million) Series D financing round in American software maker Aylus Networks.
 
Existing backers of the company Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners also participated in the round that will fund further product development. The equity stake makes a rare cross-Atlantic investment for London-based m8 Capital, which normally invests in European companies.
 
As part of the financing, Joseph Kim, general Partner of m8 Capital, will join Aylus’s board. The company, which is based in Westford, Massachusetts, and was founded in 2005, provides infrastructure software for enabling video communication services over mobile networks.
 
Aylus chief executive Mark Edwards comments, ‘The emergence of powerful video-ready smartphones and tablets, high-speed mobile networks, and consumers becoming accustomed to video calling on the desktop establishes the ideal conditions for the mass adoption of mobile video calling.
 
‘For video calling to be a mass-market phenomenon it needs to be offered as a seamless add-on option to a voice call.
 
‘People should be able to add or drop video from a call, leave a video voicemail, and roam while on a video call, just as they do now with voice calling. In addition, video-calling services should be interoperable across different device platforms, and between networks and communities of users. This requires the kind of market leading video infrastructure platform Aylus has built.’