As reported by “Globes” yesterday, OnePath Networks founder Howard Loboda is stepping down as president of the company. He will continue to serve as chairman. The board of OnePath Networks appointed Jack Hotz as president in place of Loboda last night. Up to now, Hotz served as vice-president, chief financial officer, and chief operating officer. VP marketing Eric Guth, who had been a candidate for Loboda's position, will leave the company following the abandonment of the iPath product line, which failed to prove itself in the marketplace.
Also as reported by “Globes”, the board decided to lay off a large part of the workforce. The company has announced that 20 employees will be dismissed.
OnePath said in its announcement that it would concentrate on its core technology, represented by two main products: SDTV, a system for delivering cable television, satellite television, and Internet services to multi-dwelling unit residences via coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, or a combination of the two; and Satlight, a fiber optic cable-based system for satellite ground stations.
OnePath is conducting its third round of lay-offs. The company fired 20 employees in mid-2001, after terminating its HomePath product line, due to insufficient sales. 50 employees were laid off in April 2001.
At that time, OnePath announced the signing of an agreement with NWS, a US provider of services to multi-dwelling unit residences, to deploy OnePath's iPath product in a number of US and Canadian cities.
The multi-year agreement is estimated to be worth millions of dollars per year. Sources close to the company noted that the agreements already signed yielded the company $7 million in revenue last year, and the company expects similar revenue this year.
Howard Loboda founded OnePath in 1993 under the name Foxcom. The company's cellular activity was spun off in 1998 as a company named Foxcom Wireless, and the original company later changed its name to OnePath.
The company raised $40 million in May 2000. Investors included JP Morgan Chase & Co., CIBC Oppenheimer, Genesis Partners, Apax Partners, and Israel Seed Partners.
Other investors in the company include AIG Orion, Eurofund, Patricof and Co. Ventures, and Aurum-SBC Investments.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on September 3, 2002