Up-and-coming fixed wireless service provider Towerstream Corporation (NASDAQ: TWER) announced that it has closed on the sale of 10 million shares of its common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $40 million in a registered direct public offering.”We really consider this our IPO – we got on the Nasdaq Thursday before we basically raised the money,” said Jeff Thompson, Towerstream’s CEO and president. “It’s pretty exciting. We’re going to take the money … and build out our salesforce.”
Right now, Towerstream is currently in eight markets, and has approximately 15 salespeople working its lines. But Thompson wants his company to increase that number by at least 90 percent.
“The first thing for us is to take those eight markets … and fill them up with salespeople at a centralized call center,” Thompson said. “We plan on going from 15 sales folks to 100 by the end of the year, because the sales team is what drives our growth. We should see some pretty exciting growth for a high-margin [company] like Towerstream.”
“Every single day, our sales guys make about 80 calls,” Thompson continued. “Ninety percent of these phone calls hit AT&T and Verizon, and we’ve been competing with them for over 5 years. If we just get 1 percent penetration… we’ll make a home run. It’s going to take some time, but we’re hiring new people.
“We believe that in 2008 … you should see some pretty exciting growth,” Thompson concluded.