Chicago, IL – December 28, 2010 – (RealEstateRama) — The National Association of REALTORS® has invested in Ifbyphone through its strategic investment fund, Second Century Ventures. As part of the arrangement, NAR is also collaborating with Ifbyphone to develop solutions that enhance voice interactions for its more than 1.1 million REALTOR® members.
“NAR established Second Century Ventures to bring REALTOR®-focused solutions to the real estate marketplace,” said NAR President Ron Phipps, broker-president of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I. “In Ifbyphone we’ve identified a partner who can help our members grow their businesses. We look forward to working with Ifbyphone to create customer interaction solutions for our industry. Ifbyphone will help NAR members lower their cost of doing business while also offering them new ways to leverage their marketing and advertising dollars and generate increased sales in the process.”
NAR’s investment was part of Ifbyphone’s “B” round of funding and brought the round to $8 million total. Initial “B” round funding included the previous investors Ifbyphone Founder/CEO Irv Shapiro, Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures, Spring Mill Ventures and the i2A Fund. Overall, Ifbyphone has raised $16 million in venture funding.
“The investment by Second Century Ventures validates how Ifbyphone’s innovative solutions are helping small- to mid-sized businesses attract and retain more customers by managing, measuring and automating voice communications. These new funds enhance our continued efforts as the leading company automating the often forgotten voice component of customer interactions,” said Ifbyphone’s Founder and CEO Irv Shapiro. “Voice has been, is today and will continue to be a critical component of the customer engagement process.”
Ifbyphone’s industry-leading product suite enables any business to improve the interactions with their customers on any phone, at any time. The Ifbyphone suite includes solutions for call tracking, customer notifications, interactive voice response (IVR), and virtual call center. For more information about Ifbyphone, visit www.ifbyphone.com.
About Second Century Ventures
Second Century Ventures is a strategic investment fund focused on promoting innovation in the real estate industry and helping the entrepreneurial spirit of real estate to thrive. Second Century Ventures has been fully capitalized by the National Association of REALTORS®. With over 1.1 million members, NAR is the largest trade association in the country. NAR can provide immediate strategic value to Second Century Ventures portfolio companies by allowing them access to the vast resources of a 300-person organization with the expertise, influence and power that comes only by being ingrained in an industry for over 100 years.
About Ifbyphone
Ifbyphone, a leading provider of voice applications for customer interactions, helps businesses of any size enhance customer communications, improve lead conversion, and reduce customer churn. The Ifbyphone suite of applications manages, measures and automates voice communications, is configured via a self service web based customer portal and works with any telephone. The cloud based services provides call tracking, dynamic inbound call routing with IVR screening, outbound call automation, virtual call center applications and a highly flexible family of API based integration tools. For more information about how automated voice applications can help any business grow, visit www.ifbyphone.com.
About NAR
The National Association of REALTORS®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.1 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark which may be used only by real estate professionals who are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and subscribe to its strict Code of Ethics. Not all real estate agents are REALTORS®. All REALTORS® are members of NAR.
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Information about NAR is available at www.realtor.org. This and other news releases are posted in the News Media section.
Contact:
Stephanie Singer 202/383-1050
Ifbyphone: Jason Ferrara 877/892-0101
