Wirepas, a Finnish device connectivity provider has raised an additional € 1.5 million in Series A funding from Vito Ventures and Inventure, adding to the initial € 1.5 million it raised in August 2015 from Inventure. Wirepas will use the fresh capital to accelerate growth by extending its global presence further, strengthening R&D and building brand awareness.
Founded in 2010, Wirepas is focused on providing the most reliable, optimized, scalable and easy to use device connectivity for its customers. Wirepas Connectivity is a de-centralized radio communications protocol that can be used in any device, with any radio chip and on any radio band. With Wirepas Connectivity there is no need for traditional repeaters because every wireless device is a smart router of the network. Wirepas has its headquarters in Tampere, Finland and offices in Brazil, France and the United States.
Dr. Benedikt Herles, Managing Partner of Vito Ventures, says: “We are very excited to back Wirepas’ outstanding team. We are convinced, that the company’s singular technology has the potential to be one of the key enablers in a world of smart and connected things. Being the industrial powerhouse of Europe, Germany offers a tremendous market opportunity for Wirepas. We will try to open as many doors as possible.”
As we all know, the market for the Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial Internet and device connectivity is developing rapidly. Wirepas estimates, based on market studies, that in 2022 about 15 billion devices will be connected with non-cellular technologies and out of these about three billion represent the annual addressable market for Wirepas.
Wirepas has an extremely focused strategy with a unique business model. The strategy is based on four corner stones:
- Focus on providing the most reliable, optimized, scalable and simple-to-use device connectivity for the customers.
- Focus on the software for de-centralized device connectivity – and nothing else.
- Focus on large scale IoT applications where the company can create unique value and an optimized solution for the customers.
- Focus on building partnerships to enable turnkey solutions for end customers.
Wirepas CEO Teppo Hemiä summarizes: “Wirepas has a unique connectivity solution for large-scale IoT applications. It has the potential to become the market leader in large-scale device connectivity. Our target is to connect one billion devices for good before the end of 2022.”
