Jaxtr CEO Is Out

Two weeks after laying off 30 percent of his employees, Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke finds himself out of a job. He is being replaced by vice president of engineering Bahman Koohestani (former CTO at Cyworld and Orbitz), who will be acting as “interim” CEO.

Jaxtr offers VoIP calls to both your regular and mobile phone. Its last round was a $10 million Series B in June. Investors include Lehman Brothers Venture Capital (yup, they are still around), August Capital, Mangrove, Mayfield, DFJ, and angels Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman. (Guericke was part of the founding team at LinkedIn).

The company is obviously going through a rough time, but Koohestani still spins it as a “very healthy” business. He offers the following partial stats:


On average paying members go through $10 worth of jax calling credits in just nine days, leading to strong repeat purchase behavior where now 68 percent of our minutes are now paid for and we are seeing a strong commitment to purchase premium memberships. 43 percent of our new buyers opt for a premium membership. This is a predictable revenue stream, which is subscription-based.

That is great that such a high percentage of Jaxtr’s phone minutes are being paid for. The unanswered question, unfortunately, is whether the amount Jaxtr charges covers its costs.