Internet of Things network specialist SIGFOX this week announced it has raised $115 million in new funding. The new money will support the company’s rollout of new networks in the Americas and elsewhere.
New investors include service providers NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Telefonica, and SK Telecom; Elliott Management Corp.; and Air Liquide, Eutelsat, and GDF SUEZ. These new investors join Elaia Partners, Idinvest, iXO PE, and Partech Ventures.
The new round includes a close of $93 million and a “greenshoe” of $22 million that will allow others to join the share capital of SIGFOX in the next few months.
Established in 2009, SIGFOX bills itself as a pioneer of low-power wide-area connectivity. The company offers services in France, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. And it expects to launch service in the U.S. shortly.
Securitas Direct, a security systems provider in Spain and Europe, is among the company’s customers. It will connect and monitor millions of devices in customers’ homes and businesses via SIGFOX’s dedicated IoT network, which Abertis is deploying throughout Spain. Jaap Groot, SIGFOX vice president of global sales, in September said: “The network deployment in Spain by Abertis Telecom is a major step towards our goal of 1 billion connections.”
And as Carl Ford of Crossfire Media, a TMC partner, wrote earlier this week, SIGFOX has partnered with Aerea and Tele2 to deliver solution in the Netherlands. Parking lot payment is among the key use cases for the threesome. In this case, SIGFOX technology is used to connect to the parking meters and Aerea offers integration and monitoring. Tele2, meanwhile, offers the cellular ability to connect to digital signage indicating parking space availability.
IoT companies are a hot new area of focus for investors, as noted in the recent ITEXPO Miami/IoT Evolution Conference panel “The Sense to Invest: IoT Money Round Table.”
Recent investments in this space include ABRY’s acquisitions of service providers KORE Telematics and Raco Wireless, which it combined under the KORE name. There’s also been a fair amount of consolidation in the IoT platform provider arena. For example, PTC in recent months purchased by Axeda and Thingworx. And Telit bought ILS Technology, among others.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle
