TeleNova garnered a total of $9 million in two earlier financing rounds that took only 45 days to 60 days to close. But this time the deals took 90 days, reflecting the caution most investors are showing with technology-oriented businesses, according to chief financial officer Marcelo Cabral.

Web sites in Spanish and Portuguese especially are having a rough road attracting venture capital. Instead, they rely on advertising or on sales to consumers to produce a cash stream, an unpredictable avenue, most analysts concede.

TeleNova plans to use the new funding to grow its staff to 110 by 2002 and expand its services in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Spain and Portugal. The company promotes two cost-cutting services. One is the wholesale sale of voice-over-Internet services to phone companies who then offer the service to their clients. The other is its exclusive distributorship in Spanish and Portuguese for virtual desktop software. This product allows companies to store and retrieve files through the Internet instead of using computer hard drives.