Wirepas, a pioneer setting a new standard in infinitely scalable, fail-proof IoT networks, has raised $22 million in funding. The round was led by Highland Europe. Amalfi and IQT and existing investors – ETF Partners, KPN Ventures, Vito Ventures and Vesa Laisi also participated in the round. The company is also backed by Inventure, Karma and Tesi.
The funding will be used to further expand Wirepas’ technology and solutions globally, with a focus on becoming the standard in IoT connectivity.
Scalable IoT for enterprises
Founded by Mikko Kohvakka, Teppo Hemiä, Ville Juven, and Ville Kaseva in 2010 as a spun-out of the University of Tampere, in Finland, Wirepas builds large-scale and low-cost wireless IoT connectivity that never fails, for enterprises globally. It solves the scalability, reliability and sustainability issues that have been holding Massive IoT back from its full, society-changing potential.
Unlike centralised systems that connect IoT devices via a single base station, each device on a Wirepas network acts as an access point for the next. By making small hops between devices rather than returning signals to a far away central hub, Wirepas’ networks use minimal amounts of the wireless spectrum without sacrificing results. It reduces the costs and energy required to manage such networks. If one sensor goes down, Wirepas reroutes the data without interruption and the network autonomously reconfigures itself to stay online.
Wirepas’ autonomous and decentralised approach uses algorithms and a unique mesh architecture to connect as many as 16 million networks, each having staggering 4 billion devices at a time.
Teppo Hemiä, Wirepas CEO said: “The dream of IoT – devices that communicate with each other to automate processes and collect usable data – has had huge appeal for a long time. But until now there has been a disconnect between the limited, centralised IoT solutions of old and what is needed.”
“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.”
Laurence Garrett, Partner at Highland Europe said: “Wirepas isn’t just an incremental improvement over existing technologies – this technology is setting a new standard for what’s possible. By offering a solution that is cost-effective and scalable, Wirepas addresses the two most significant barriers to IoT adoption.”
