(2 July 2008 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Nimbuzz, the mobile Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) and Instant Messaging (IM) provider, has raised $15 million in a second round funding.

Nimbuzz will use this latest funding to develop its product offering for the wide range of handsets, across multiple IM and social network communities and different countries. The team will also work to extend Nimbuzz’s reach to other platforms including Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android and will implement additional social and presence-based features to its clients.

The second round of funding was led by Naspers/MIH with Nimbuzz’s other major existing investor Mangrove Capital Partners also participating.

Lugt added, “By incorporating our applications, social networks can offer their users fully integrated real-time communication services like voice calls, chat, file sharing and access to their friends in other popular IM communities such as Skype, AIM, Yahoo, MSN and GTalk. Additionally, their online social networking experience can be extended to the mobile phone, allowing them to become completely connected.”

Nimbuzz claims of dealing with 10 major social networks and three operators already.

Last year, Nimbuzz had raised $10 million in funding, led by Mangrove Capital Partners with investments from Naspers / MIH Group and Holtzbrinck Ventures. The money was used for the development of the current product offering, which allows users who download Nimbuzz access to free mobile VoIP calling, conference calling, instant messaging, chat and group chat, as well as photo and file sending across multiple IM communities. It also offers a widget which provides voice to 23 social networks, including Facebook and MySpace.