Charles Vogt doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet. The GENBAND leader earlier this month closed on the assets of Nortel’s Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business (CVAS) – just the latest in a long line of acquisitions by the company. And by this time next year, according to reports, he expects to file for an IPO.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the company has significantly built its portfolio and revenues over time both through acquisitions and organic growth. That includes purchasing NextPoint Networks in the fall of 2008, Tekelec’s Switching Solutions Group in April 2007, Nokia Siemens Networks’ Surpass IP trunking gateway product lines in April 2008, and both BayPackets Inc. and the Digital Central Office business of Siemens Networks LLC in late 2006.

Just six years ago GENBAND had $2 million in sales and 80 employees. Today it boasts $800 million in sales and 2,200 employees. GENBAND ranked 63rd on Deloitte’s 2009 Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies in North America. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth over five years. From 2004 to 2008, GENBAND grew 2,869 percent.

The fact that GENBAND named Jeffrey Kupp as CFO in December, noting the former Microtune CFO’s “extensive experience managing complex challenges and opportunities of the public markets,” as Vogt then put it, was also a clue as to its aim toward an IPO. Of course, Vogt has since named a new CFO, having appointed Daryl Raiford to the post just last week. Raiford previously served as vice president of finance and business transformation at publicly traded, Fortune 500 Freescale Semiconductor.

The Wall Street Journal in February reported that the “IPO market has gotten off to a wretched start in 2010,” but noted that bankers nonetheless were optimistic about a pickup on this front for the year as a whole.

While the past two years has seen few IPOs as the country, and the world at large, continues to reel from the economic slowdown, the prospect of going public now looks like a very real possibility for more companies.

So far this year, 48 companies nationally have raised $7.2 billion by going public, according to a recent Dallas Business Journal story.

By Paula Bernier.