Unified communications firm Fuze hires well-traveled CEO to lead it to IPO promised land

IDG

Fuze, the Cambridge, Mass., unified communications-as-a-service company that recently scored an additional $104 million in funding, has named 25-year-plus tech industry veteran Colin Doherty as its CEO.

Most recently Doherty oversaw internet performance management and DNS service provider Dyn during exciting times: He joined in October, later that month the company got hit with a massive DDoS attack and then Oracle bought the vendor in November. 

The previous three companies he led, Arbor Networks, BTI Systems and Mangrove Systems, also were all acquired under his watch -- with Tektronix, Juniper Networks and Carrier Access Corp., doing the honors, respectively.

While there are plenty of potential buyers in the UCaaS market too, Doherty says he has his eye on the public market with Fuze because of the size of the opportunity for the cloud-based product provider.

Founder and former CEO Steve Kokinos will serve as executive chairman now at the company, previously known as ThinkingPhones (see "Networking company name change madness is upon us").

The voice/video/collaboration company, which has grabbed two $100M-plus funding rounds over the past year and has raised more than $300M overall, is using its new financial resources to boost marketing, geographic reach and product innovation. Fuze also has been strengthening its executive team in recent months, appointing a CFO, chief people officer, general counsel and lead for services and support.

Fuze has established itself as a serious competitor in the UCaaS market, with Gartner last year labeling the company as a leader alongside the likes of BT, 8x8, RingCentral and West. AT&T, Google, Microsoft and Verizon are among other players in this market, and the field just keeps getting more crowded, with Amazon chiming in this week with a UCaaS offering of its own.