After nearly collapsing during the telecom meltdown of 2001, Seattle's Airbiquity is coming back strong with an impressive list of auto manufacturing customers and new technology that executives hope will put it in the middle of data services in automobiles.

It's been a long slog.

Kamyar Moinzadeh

But today the 11-year-old company -- whose modems transport location and diagnostic information from automobiles over the cellular voice channel -- plans to announce a $25 million venture round led by Ignition Partners. Total financing now stands at about $75 million.

"It is a big round for the company," said Chief Executive Kamyar Moinzadeh, adding that the capital was needed to support the long sales cycle in the auto industry and help expand in Europe and China.

With more auto manufacturers adding navigation and other data services to vehicles, Moinzadeh feels as if the company has finally started to arrive. By 2012, Moinzadeh said that telematics services will be as standard in cars as airbags. Though the industry underwent a "false start" at the turn of the decade, Moinzadeh says "this time it's definitely real."

"There's been tremendous momentum," he said. "Our flagship customer, General Motors OnStar, announced that OnStar will be standard in every vehicle. That really caused a momentum in the North American marketplace where every (car manufacturer) has telematics plans."

In addition to GM, Airbiquity has contracts to provide data transport services to BMW and three other undisclosed auto companies. In many cases, Airbiquity's technology provides the wireless connectivity so that car manufacturers can provide services such as automatic air-bag notification, remote door unlock and driving directions.

But in addition to those safety and security services, Moinzadeh said, the market is changing, with content providers looking to get their services into vehicles.

"You could have call centers that do emergency calls, but you could have the Googles of the world that are providing really good localized search capabilities," he said. "By decoupling access from content, you can bring in all of these different content providers."

Airbiquity's latest effort, VIAaq, is a service that connects the car makers and the content providers.

"It is a big change for the company. It takes us from a software licensing model on one product to a service bureau approach and managing all of the services to the (automobile maker)," said David Jumpa, senior vice president of global business development at Airbiquity.

The company, which competes against wireless carriers, is betting on the VIAaq technology and its existing business in order to ramp up again.

Airbiquity's work force, which dwindled to eight employees in 2001 after losing a contract with Ford Motor Co.'s now defunct Wingcast unit, is approaching 80 people, just below the levels before the collapse. At the end of this year, the company plans to employ about 100 people.

Revenues are growing by more than 60 percent each year, with General Motors OnStar representing less than 40 percent of sales. That compares to 90 percent in 2005.

The company's technology is already deployed in about 7.5 million vehicles, with Moinzadeh estimating that it will more than double that figure by the end of 2009.

It's a remarkable turnaround, said Troy Hartzell, who as an investment banker worked on Airbiquity's financing during the first part of the decade.

"Those investors stood by that company and were in the trenches and continued to go after the marketplace," said Hartzell, now managing partner at Evolution Capital Advisors in Seattle. "That is a Phoenix rising from the ashes."