Telefonica has confirmed its acquisition of Israeli VoIP start-up Jajah for €207 million.
As reported last week, the carrier had been in a bidding war against Cisco and Microsoft for the four-year-old company.
Telefonica said that the acquisition of the company “opens up new capabilities in the voice communication space” for the carrier.
“People using social networking sites such as Twitter now have an even wider range of communications channels available — and have the option of speaking directly to each other as well as communicating by text or keyboard,” Telefonica Europe, Chairman and CEO Matthew Key said in a statement.
In addition to servicing a global VoIP network Jajah also connects the calls of Yahoo Messenger users and is also integrated into Twitter, and the dating site Match.com, letting users call each other through the sites without revealing their phone numbers.
As part of the acquisition, Jajah will continue to operate under its own brand and report to Telefonica Europe.
Founded in 2005, Jajah has 15 million subscribers who use its IP network for discounted voice calls to 125 countries.
To date it has raised $35 million from Deutsche Telekom, Intel Capital, Sequoia and other VC funds.