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After months of speculation, Sprint (NYSE: S) MVNO FreedomPop is not going to be bought by anyone after all. Instead, the company declined multiple takeover offers, raised $30 million in new funding and will continue expanding domestically and internationally. FreedomPop CEO Stephen Stokols also said that in 2016 the company will add another U.S. carrier partner.
FreedomPop's Series B funding round is led by Partech Ventures, with existing investors DCM Capital and Mangrove Capital also participating. Additionally, the company is adding a new, unnamed strategic investor to the round, but is not part of the initial funding and will be announced separately, perhaps in the next few weeks. "It is a major technology company and we will have [a] commercial deal on the heels of it," Stokols said of the strategic investor.
Before this funding round FreedomPop had raised $17 million in equity and $5 million in debt.
M&A speculation has swirled around FreedomPop ever since August 2014, when FierceWireless reported that a "major carrier" was in talks to acquire the company. In an interview with FierceWireless, Stokols said there were two main reasons FreedomPop decided to get more funding instead of get acquired.
First, the company is starting to gain serious traction terms of subscribers and revenues,...