[Edit: Jingle has raised a total of $61.4 million, not $56.4 million. I missed a $5 million funding round they had in December.]
Jingle Networks has received a $30 million investment led by Goldman Sachs and Hearst Corporation. Jingle operates FREE411.COM, a service that provides free ad-supported telephone directory assistance.
This is the company’s fourth funding round. Jingle raised $400,000 when they started out, $5 million in December, and $26 million in April. So to date, Jingle has raised $61.4 million.
I would guess that investors own roughly 1/3 of Jingle. Therefore, Jingle’s valuation is possibly around $184 million. Not bad for such a young company.
FREE411 works like any other directory assistance service. You call 1-800-FREE-411 and are answered by an automated service that asks you a few questions about the business number you are looking for. And while you wait for the number, sponsored ads related to your listing are played. If the automated service is unable to help you, live operators are also available.
I think Jingle has a great thing going for it. Directory assistance services cost a lot. Sprint charged me something like $3.00 to use their assistance service last week which was ridiculous! I don’t mind having to listen to a few ads to save $3.00.
It’s projected that Americans use directory assistance services 6 billion times a year. Therefore, FREE411.COM has huge potential for growth. According to Jingle, its service handled 13 million calls in September. That’s a sizeable number. If Jingle keeps growing and capturing segments of the traditional directory assistance market, I can easily see it become a billion dollar company.
