FreedomPop, a telecommunications company that is on a mission to provide fast and free mobile services to all the people in the United States, said that it has raised $50 million in financing.
The capital raising, which follows the closing of $30 million in financing six months ago and the successful launch of the company's service in the United Kingdom, brings the total funding to FreedomPop to over $109 million.
According to the company, it will be using the raised funding to fuel the growth of its disruptive free mobile service and hasten FreedomPop's expansion internationally into markets in Asia, Europe and South America.
The money will also go towards the launch of FreedomPop's new Global Hotspot and SIM, which initially covers the European region.
FreedomPop states that the Global Hotspot combines available cellular networks from all over the world to provide users with a free and seamless data connection. The service will initially provide free global data to users from the United States and the United Kingdom when they visit a list of 25 countries, which includes the two aforementioned nations, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The global data plans, which are completely free, automatically allow the user data of up to 200MB monthly in any of the listed countries, and subscribers can use it with any smartphone or connected device. For users that will require more global data, they can purchase that at $10 per 500MB.
FreedomPop said that the Global Hotspot is now available for a launch price of $49.99, while the SIM will be sold for $10.
"FreedomPop has proven that new Internet business models work in the telecom space and has developed the technology to scale it globally," said FreedomPop co-founder and COO Steven Sesar, adding that the newly received financing both validates the company's capabilities and ensures that it holds the needed capital to ascend into the top 10 global communications service providers.
A couple of months ago in November, FreedomPop revealed that it is working to offer the first phone that will work with the company's Wi-Fi-based communications service, wherein users will be able to enjoy a free mobile carrier service that runs on existing Wi-Fi networks.
The phone is being developed by FreedomPop in conjunction with Intel, with the device due to be released within the year. The phone will be powered by the Sofia chipset of Intel and will have the capability to switch connections between cellular and Wi-Fi without causing any interruptions to calls and text messages.
The upcoming device will be taking advantage of the expanding number of free Wi-Fi hotspots, of which FreedomPop itself owns about 8.8 million within the United States.
Since the initial launch of the company, FreedomPop now features over 1 million subscribers. Over the next several months, the company said that it will be expanding its service into more counties and will announce new partnerships with global mobile carriers.
