Tampere-based IoT firm Wirepas has raised $22 million in a funding round led by Highland Europe with participation from Amalfi and IQT, and previous investors ETF Partners, KPN Ventures, Vito Ventures and Vesa Laisi.
The fresh capital will further expand Wirepas' technology and solutions globally, it is vying for the position of becoming the standard in IoT connectivity. It already has offices in Australia, Germany, Finland, France, India, and the US. It is tackling the scalability, reliability and sustainability issues it claims have been holding IoT back from a grand-scale move to massive IoT.
Rather than IoT devices connecting via a single base station, each device on a Wirepas network acts as an access point for the next. With the small hop between devices, Wirepas’ networks use minimal amounts of the wireless spectrum without sacrificing results. The results are lower cost, more resilient structure and lower energy usage.
“Wirepas finally makes massive IoT’s promise a reality by bringing a radical and revolutionary approach to unlock its full potential. Wirepas is also key contributor to the new non-cellular 5G standard of ITU-R. Today’s announcement and funding is a testament to our team’s dedication to the project and we are grateful to Highland Europe for recognising this technology as a game-changer," says Teppo Hemiä, Wirepas CEO.
In the UK, Wirepas’ technology is used by the NHS to help keep track of equipment and assets. The amount spent on surplus equipment has dropped from 30 percent to as little as five percent by using RFiD tags.
“Wirepas isn’t just an incremental improvement over existing technologies - this technology is setting a new standard for what’s possible," says Laurence Garrett, Partner at Highland Europe.
Lead image: via Wirepas. Photo: Uncredited.
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