alarm:clock

Communications - Friday, December 23, 2005

Adomo = VMail + VoIP + Cell - Fun

HQ: Cupertino, CA

Founded: 1999

Management: CEO Jeff Snider had co-founded TouchWave, an enterprise IP telephony company bought by Ericsson in 1999. Chairman Bob Cohn was co-founder of Octel Communications. Adomo was founded by Samir Lehaff, a serial entrepreneur who left the company to start gpware, a defunct mobile software startup.

Investors: In December 2005, the company closed $15M in Series C. Investors are Menlo Ventures and Storm Ventures.

Business Model: Its sounds dull: next generation voice mail that integrates with Microsoft Exchange - an upgrade for enterprises that makes for better VoIP and wireless voice mail integration. Adomo has integrated speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies. Users can access their e-mail, calendar, and contacts by phone using voice commands. Adomo can read e-mails, record replies, and schedule business meetings.

Competitors: Avaya, ActiveVoice, Cisco Systems, Lucent, Nortel, Orange

Dirt: Enterprise voice mail in Cupertino makes us sleepy. Adomo also strikes us as a startup that has been kept in life-support by VCs. With its latest round of investment, however, we expect the company has turned the corner - if nothing it should be able to make this last until at least 2008.