BW Online | January 6, 2004 | Skype: Net Telephony as File-Trading

To date, Skype says its network has handled as many as 170,000 concurrent users without a major outage. Its growth has been impressive enough to secure an initial round of venture-capital funding, rumored to be in the millions of dollars, with Bessemer Venture Partners in Larchmont, N.Y., as the lead investor. Skyper opened a London office in December and has already grown from less than a dozen employees to 25, with lots of new hiring ahead. It plans to introduce its premium products sometime this spring, and in the meantime, Pulver says, it has been talking to other VoIP startups about ways to more easily interconnect their respective customers.