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Martin Varsavsky Closes a Further $14 Million Funding Round for Fon

Varsavsky has succeeded in  providing entire countries with free roaming based on shared wifi hotspots,  and thanks to this recent funding looks set  to continue.

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Martin Varsavsky FON

Telecom entrepreneur has announced the completion of  a further financing  round  totaling  $14 million (€10.3 million) for Fon, the global WiFi sharing network which he founded and acts as CEO..

Qualcomm Ventures, the venture capital arm of Qualcomm Incorporated, once again  led the fundraising round, emphasizing their special relationship with Fon as a strategic investor as well as developing products that are mutually beneficial to both companies.

For example Fon are reportedly in the latter stages of  developing a new generation of router capable of combining social WiFi with social music, that will be based on a chipset developed by Qualcomm Atheros, a Qualcomm subsidiary.

Other investors include  Index Ventures, Google, Coral, Atomico and Deutsche Telekom (DT), all of whom have previously invested in Fon.

This latest round of funding  takes the total amount raised  since Fon was founded in 2006 by, to more than $80 million (€60 million).

Fon’s  Wi-Fi coverage is reported to have  increased by  50% during 2013, currently standing at 12 million WiFi hotspots throughout the World. Fon’s winning formula of converting existing WiFi hotspots into community hotspots, has proved to be an ever increasing success, with the company have succeeded in reaching  near pervasive levels of  WiFi coverage in countries such as the UK, France and Belgium, with considerably larger countries such as Brazil and  Japan gaining ground rapidly

According to Martin Varsaksky, Fon can currently boast having  significant coverage in more than 1, 000 major cities, making the company the world’s largest WiFi operator when it comes inner city coverage.

FON LOGO

Announcing the latest round of funding,   Martin Varsavsky stated that not only the amount of  capital raised in this round is important, but also  the caliber of investors, who will help us  propel Fon into our next stage of growth.

“We are excited about our new relationship with Qualcomm, which is an amazing company and a leader in mobile data communication. By integrating Fon into Qualcomm Atheros’ chipsets, more devices and systems will be automatically equipped to be part of the Fon’s global WiFi network.” Varsaksky summed up.

Apart from their new router,   Fon is soon to launch their “WiFi for Business” concept, described as a WiFi solution for Small and Medium Businesses.

Fon intends to use some of the funds raised  to further  expand the spread of their service, not just into the U.S., but also other global regions where their service is yet to reach. According to Varsavsky,   Fan expects to reach 35 million WiFi hotspots by 2016.

Fon has offices in Madrid, London, Tokyo and New York.

 

Martin Varsavsky  was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, although he has made his Madrid, Spain  since 1995. Martin and his family left Argentina in the mid seventies, to  live in the United States under the status as political refugees, escaping the cruel and repressive military junta which controlled  the country during those years.

Varsavsky graduated as a BA from  the New York University, in 1983 , going on to earn an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, completing his University  education  bey gaining an MBA from the Columbia Business School.

Since the late 1980s Martín Varsavsky has founded seven companies all of them involved, in one way or another, in either the telecommunications or new media industry.

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