FreedomPop has been working to build partnerships with other companies for some time now to help finance its free mobile service business. Today, the company announced it has formed a new partnership with Partech Ventures. As a result, the company managed to net an additional $30 million in funding to expand its operations.
"Partech Ventures was the perfect fit for us given its network and reach in Europe, where we are focusing our initial international expansion," said Stephen Stokols, FreedomPop founder and CEO. "Partech, coupled with our existing U.S. investors, gives us support from Sand Hill Road to Europe."
To help facilitate the new partnership, Mark Menell of Partech Ventures will be joining the board of directors at FreedomPop. The added funding will mostly be targeted at expanding the companies' operations in the U.S., where FreedomPop primarily operates, but it will also help the company's efforts to expand in other countries.
"We are excited to have FreedomPop as one of the first investments in our new growth equity fund. We believe the company has an incredibly disruptive business model for today's large and fast-growing global telecoms industry," said Menell. "This is also largely a bet on FreedomPop's outstanding management team, who we knew we could partner with from the first time we met."
More coverage:
- FreedomPop Launching Free Mobile Service In UK
- FreedomPop Launching 'Premium' Voice Services Using Old-Fashioned 2G
- FreedomPop Launches 'LTE Alternative' Carrier-Independent Wi-Fi Service
- FreedomPop Now Lets You Call Abroad For Free, Too
- FreedomPop Breaks New Ground, Begins Making Own Tablets And Smartphones
To date, FreedomPop has been in operation for 18 months, and it has nearly one million subscribers pulled entirely from online subscriptions. The next step in FreedomPop's strategy is to aggressively move into brick-and-mortar retail markets, which will make it even easier for end-users to subscribe to the service and further accelerate growth. FreedomPop announced that these negotiations have already begun, and although nothing is set in stone, we will likely see FreedomPop in various stores soon.
"We received several M&A offers, but we ultimately decided it was premature to sell on the cusp of exponential traction," added Stokols. "Following on accelerated growth and our pending global expansion, we are confident we will create massive value within the next 12 to 24 months at which point we could revisit exit options."
The idea of a business that operates by giving away free mobile service might have seemed crazy two years ago, but clearly FreedomPop is managing to thrive with its revolutionary business model -- and it's growing. With new funding, that is undoubtedly going to continue, especially as FreedomPop moves into new countries in Europe and around the world.
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