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When Jing Liu, CEO of MINO Wireless, traveled through Asia on business he found making calls back to the US a frustrating prospect.

Buying a local phone or using phone cards was almost "painful" and not conducive to conducting business, he said.

 "I was looking for a solution and I couldn't find it," he said in an interview with American Venture.

Liu did what any entrepreneur in such a position would do—he made a solution.

"I didn't think the world today should be like that," Liu said. "And I didn't the carriers were doing a good job providing this need."

MINO's technology, which routes calls via existing internet connections found on mobile phones, was the first that used voice-over-IP solutions for hand sets, Liu said.

MINO is available in 200 countries and is marketed to business professionals and midsize to large companies who can benefit the most from the savings from MINO's cut rates of 2 cents per minute.

"What MINO can do is help these enterprises cut their phone bills by over 50%," Liu said. "If you look at large enterprises their monthly bill is around six figures. I think 50 percent has huge impact on their bottom line."

It's been a fast ride for Liu, who puts himself around 30 and whom started his first Internet company in Cleveland in 1995. It bombed but drove Liu from Ohio to Silicon Valley.

After making a prototype in 2004, Liu raised $1.5 million in Series A funding in 2005 with the help of Silicon Valley angels.  MINO's product launched in January of 2006 and now has over 200,000 users worldwide, he said.

But the field is crowded with startups and companies like Skype, who are doggedly going after the market.

MINO will use the $7 million cash injection to expand MINO's platform nationally and scale operations, sales and marketing.

Liu said he was not surprised that MINO's product has been embraced but was taken aback at how hungry and how quickly the market moved to join him.

"When we launched our product in January there was no other players out there. By July this market started taking off," he said. " It is the right timing. But we definitely didn't expect to be in sync with how the market reacted, how many players came in to this right away."

80 percent of phones made in the last two years are compatible with MINO's technology, Liu said, which can be downloaded from their website, www.minowireless.com.