Colibria

About Colibria

Established in 2000 and headquartered in Lysaker, Norway, Colibria AS operated as a specialized provider of mobile instant messaging, communication services, and real-time social networking solutions for the telecommunications sector. The company was founded by individuals with a background at Telenor Mobil, and one of its initial investors was Aspiro Ventures, a division of Aspiro AB. The early investment from Aspiro, amounting to NOK 3 million for a 7.5% stake, provided industrial and financial support, highlighting the founders' strong industry connections.

Colibria’s core business centered on its Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) application servers, which enabled telecommunication operators to offer enhanced messaging, presence, and network address book solutions. The company’s technology was designed to be compliant with IETF, 3GPP, and OMA standards, ensuring interoperability within multi-vendor IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and pre-IMS environments. This allowed operators to deploy value-added services like instant messaging and social networking, creating new revenue streams and differentiating their offerings in the market. Colibria's business model focused on providing these server solutions to a global client base of telecom operators.

The company's main product was its SIP IM Server, a standards-compliant application server that performed as an IMS application server. It also developed a fully interoperable Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS) client-server infrastructure based on the OMA's "Wireless Village" specification, in partnership with mobile messaging software supplier Magic4. This demonstrated a commitment to broad interoperability with a range of clients and devices. Before its acquisition, Colibria had successfully raised $32 million in funding from investors including Ferd and Northzone Ventures. On April 6, 2011, Colibria was acquired by Metaswitch Networks, marking a significant milestone in its journey.