Asoka USA raises $7M for to turn electrical outlets into broadband connections

October 4, 2007 | Matt Marshall

Asoka USA, a Foster City, Calif. maker of equipment that turns home electrical outlets into Internet broadband network endpoints, has raised a $7 million in a first round of capital.

The company says it has $6 million in revenue last year, but it must be losing money because the company’s valuation after the investment is only $15 million. Typically, if a company has revenue, it is valued at several times more than its revenue base. The round suggests the company was valued only at $8 million before the investment.

VentureWire (subscription required) first reported the news today.

Why Storm Ventures and Venrock, the investors, are backing this company is unclear. The company was started in 2001, when a number of similar companies were started trying to use powerlines for communication purposes. Most have bombed. Also, there’s plenty of competition from broadband and wireless technologies.

Apparenty, it has taken no capital until now, and last year began selling its products to telecom carriers such as AT&T and Comcast Corp.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.