Evolve IP Raises $15.6M First Round From Individuals

Evolve IP Raises $15.6M First Round From Individuals

by Timothy Hay, Dow Jones VentureWire

Evolve IP LLC, maker of a hosted application that helps businesses buy, manage and secure their communications systems, has closed a first institutional round of $15.6 million in equity financing.

Tom Gravina, chief executive of the Wayne, Pa.-based company, said four private investors co-led the round: Ira Lubert of Independence Capital Partners; Keystone Foods LLC Chairman Herb Lotman; Blackstone Group co-founder Pete Peterson; and Michael Forman, a managing partner at FB Capital Partners.

Evolve's founders, including Gravina, provided funding of about $1.5 million after the company was launched in 2006, Gravina said.

The current round will go toward a further build-out of Evolve's platform, the company said. Evolve combines hardware, software, bandwidth and network security into one hosted application, Gravina said.

"There's nobody out there doing that," Gravina said. "It's a technology change-in-the-landscape. It's faster, more efficient, more secure and more advanced."

Evolve's platform is designed to work in a number of areas, including Internet telephony, managed network services, security and compliance and hosted applications. The company's technology partners include Cisco Systems Inc., BroadSoft Inc. and IBM Corp.