One of the leading lights of the IP telephony software industry filed for an IPO this week, indicating that the door for telecom public offerings may be inching open a bit.
VoIP application provider BroadSoft said it would raise up to $103.5 million in an initial public offering. Based in Gaithersburg, Md., BroadSoft was founded in 1998 and, despite losing money every year since, has become the software provider of choice for many competitive VoIP providers. BroadSoft also supplies application software to major incumbents including AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ), and Qwest.
In the last year, BroadSoft has fueled growth through acquisition: It bought Packet Island, which offers hosted quality-of-service assessment and monitoring tools for advanced IP communications services, in October 2009, less than a year after purchasing rival Sylantro Systems.
The company, which lost $7.8 million on sales of $68.9 million in 2009, according to the Associated Press, did not disclose a prospective date for the public offering.
