Aunet, a San Mateo, California-based internet services company, has raised a further $85m in funding from a consortium of Asian, European and US investors, and immediately announced the acquisition of AT&T Corp’s Easylink Hong Kong unit. Despite its US roots, Aunet’s corporate strategy is to build a leading Asian internet services group, and is currently in the process of changing its name to iAsiaWorks.
While iAsiaWorks corporate headquarters will remain in San Mateo, the Easylink acquisition is seen as a key move to establish a regional center, charged with becoming the leading ISP in Hong Kong, and a gateway provider to mainland China. Its role will be central to iAsiaWorks’ mission to become the only truly pan-Asian internet solutions provider. Our strategy is to provide world-class technology and Asian, localized applications and expertise said JoAnn Patrick Ezzell, the company’s chairman and CEO.
EasyLink Services Hong Kong, for which iAsiaWorks has paid an undisclosed sum, brings with it one of the territory’s two largest data center facilities, and becomes the first of what iAsiaWorks said will be a network of eight data centers and co-location facilities scheduled to come online in Asia over the next 18 months.
iAsiaWorks latest round of funding was led by two venture capitalists, Newbridge Asia and the Sprout Group, but other participants included Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Hambrecht & Quist, Bechtel Enterprises, Korea Technology Banking Corporation and a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Pacific Century Cyberworks group, Internet Elite Ltd.
