Jaxtr Inc., which offers an online VoIP widget that acts as a virtual 1-800-number, is launching a slew of new features and plans this summer to raise at least $10 million in additional funding.

The company today launched the public beta of its service that brings voice to social networks and blogs. The company also introduced a new VoiceBlast feature, which enables Jaxtr account holders to use their own voice to automatically greet and update people visiting their social network profile or blog.

A prominent group of investors dropped $1.5 million on the Menlo Park, Calif.-based start-up in December. The investment was led by Chamath Palihapitiya, principal at Mayfield Fund and former vice president of America Online Inc.'s Instant Messenger division. The funding also included Howard Hartenbaum, general partner at Draper Richards, who led the firm's founding investment in Skype S/A; Warren Packard, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Ken Howery, managing partner at The Founders Fund; investor Ron Conway, perhaps best known for his early bet in Google Inc.; Rajeev Motwani, also an early investor in Google; and Reid Hoffman, former chief executive and co-founder of LinkedIn Corp. who has invested in Web 2.0 plays like Facebook Inc. and Digg Inc.

Chief Executive Konstantin Guericke, also a co-founder of LinkedIn Corp. who left last year to join Jaxtr, said the company will seek a Series A this summer worth between $10 million and $15 million.

"We're going to work on the business model to see how much cash we will need," Guericke said.

The Jaxtr software is designed to connect people via phone by clicking on a widget embedded on a Web page. Someone with a Jaxtr account can set their profile to forward calls to their mobile or landline phone.

"We think of it as linking your phone as a microphone to your social network," Guericke said.

Callers can reach a Jaxtr user without having a Jaxtr account of their own. Once the first call is initiated, Jaxtr provides the caller with a unique, permanent number, which they can use to call the same person in the future, even when neither person is online or even near their computer. Because the new number is typically local for the caller, he or she will be able to reach Jaxtr users without incurring long distance charges on both domestic and international calls - even when calling from a mobile phone. Guericke said the feature was so popular in the private beta that many users shared their Jaxtr link with family and friends via email, so that they could call from their mobile phone without paying expensive international mobile rates.

Jaxtr's PrivacyShield enables users to control on a caller-by-caller basis whether someone can ring their phone, leave a voice mail or gets blocked even from leaving voice messages. Jaxtr users also get access to visual voicemail, a Web-based application that enables them to review and manage voice messages just as with Web-based email accounts.

After a successful invitation-only private beta with several thousand users participating, Jaxtr is now available for free to anyone. With the launch of the public beta, Jaxtr is also introducing a host of new features, including: VoiceBlast, which enables Jaxtr account holders to use their own voice to automatically greet and update people visiting their social network profile or blog; voice and text messages; worldwide support, allowing users to access Jaxtr in over 200 countries; and local numbers, which allows users to make long distance calls with a local number.

Jaxtr will eventually attempt to monetize the service by selling bundled content packages similar to mobile providers.

"The goal is to keep the cost below what it would normally cost," Guericke said. "The mobile international calls are such a target. This is where consumers are getting gouged. That's were the cost angle will be attractive and will be easy for us to offer prices that are lower."