According to Venture Beat, iSkoot, a company that gives users the ability to make Skype internet calls from mobile phones, has raised $19 million to build a mobile platform for AT&T. Set to launch in mid-November, the platform will provide web services like social networking, email, RSS feeds, and Twitter, for AT&T customers who don’t have feature-rich mobile devices.
iSkoot currently provides an app that allows cheap calls through a cellular voice network. Users make a local call to connect with an exchange, and the exchange turns the local call into an internet call., thereby allowing users to make cheaper calls, and carriers to still make money on the placed call. Skype enters the picture deep in iSkoot’s stack.
In September 2008, iSkoot bought Social.IM, a social networking software product iSkoot hopes will be able to scrape data from web services and put the data on the desktop in the form of instant messaging contacts.