Start-Up

Wes Rogers, executive vice president of marketing and sales, left, and Terry Prime, chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering, operate NexVortex Inc.'s VOIP data center in Herndon. (By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)

Name: NexVortex Inc.

Location : Herndon

Funding : The Internet phone company has received a private placement for $325,000 from a group of angel investors and is seeking venture funding of $5 million to $6 million.

Big idea: NexVortex provides voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phone service for small and medium-size businesses worldwide, targeting businesses with 20 to 500 phone lines. "Business customers are expecting the quality level and the feature sets for their businesses, and they're still looking to see the benefits of VOIP, which translates into cost savings," said Wes Rogers, executive vice president of marketing and sales. NexVortex has developed proprietary technology that monitors networks for slowdowns, predicts network behavior and automatically adjusts traffic to maintain traffic speeds and voice quality, said Fred Fromm, chief executive and president.

Where the idea was hatched: "We've been involved in VOIP for years," Rogers said. "We saw great products coming out, but there was this gap on the service side, specifically in the business segment."

Customer: The company says it has about 50 customers both domestic and international, including the New York State Jury Commission, an online college in Florida, and Rossi & Rovetti, a multi-site flower shop based in San Francisco.

Pricing: Varies, depending on the size of the business and selected features. "The typical savings are 40 to 50 percent over traditional telecom expenses," said Rogers.

Founded: 2002. The service launched in early 2005.

Who's in charge: Fromm; Terry Prime, chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering; and Rogers.

Employees: Ten. Fromm hopes to expand the company's workforce to 30 by the end of this year and double that number in 2007.

What the name means: It was inspired by a book titled "Inside the Tornado," said Rogers. "Tornado markets describe a lot of the high-tech segments when there's an introductory growth period and then an explosive growth period. That's the vortex, and we are the next one," Rogers said.

-- Andrea Caumont