VoIP and social network startup Jaxtr Inc. has laid off 13 of is employees and its chief executive has stepped down.
In June the Menlo Park-based company raised $10 million to expand its Web-based service that allow users to make less expensive long-distance calls, and said that along with that as-yet unspent funding and its revenue streams, the company will be able to stay afloat for at least 18 months.
On the company's blog, interim CEO Bahman Koohestani said Konstantin Guericke is stepping down to spend more time with his wife and two young daughters. "I like to thank Konstantin for his leadership, marketing insights, and social networking know-how to get jaxtr past its initial phase," Koohestani said. "I’m also glad that Konstantin will remain with us as chairman, and I am very excited and look forward to working with the stellar team here to deliver all the enhancements our members have been asking for..."
Earlier this year Guericke said the service has registered more than 10 million users in 220 countries and spent no money on advertising.
Guericke was also co-founder and CEO of Mountain View-based social networking site LinkedIn Corp.
The company's service generates local numbers for users to call with their phones, eliminating long-distance and international charges, Guericke said. Users must be registered with jaxtr to receive calls, but consumers don't have to register with jaxtr to call the service's customers for free.
Jaxtr has several revenue streams: fees for phone minutes, advertising on its Web site, and advertising on free text messages. Users get free minutes for referrals and for activity on the site but pay 1 cent to 6 cents a minute for additional calls.
With the layoffs, the company now has about 30 employees.
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