Telensa, which provides end-to-end smart city solutions incorporating low power wide area (LPWA) wireless technology, announced funding of US$18 million to fuel its next stage of profitable growth.
This includes equity funding from Environmental Technologies Fund and debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank. It will be used to support expansion in order to meet growing demand in the smart cities market.
Telensa makes wireless smart city control applications, including what it says is the world’s most widely deployed ‘smart streetlight solution’, with over 50 city and regional networks deployed in eight countries and a project footprint covering over 1 million streetlights.
Fundamental to Telensa’s success is its LPWA Ultra Narrow Band (UNB) radio system, which combines low cost, long range, long battery life and 2-way communication for massive numbers of devices. According to Machina Research, with a projected 3.8 billion connections, LPWA systems will dominate wide area wireless connectivity for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) by 2024.
Telensa is experiencing strong demand growth in three areas:
- The worldwide rollout of energy-efficient LED street lights. Connecting these lights is becoming mandatory as it unlocks further energy savings, reduces maintenance costs and enables flexible lifetime control of local lighting levels.
- Streetlights are increasingly being seen as the ideal low-cost hub for smart city sensor applications, such as weather and pollution monitoring.
- New Smart City applications that connect to the city’s UNB network. The company’s smart parking solution, for example, already includes some of the world’s largest deployments such as Moscow and Shenzhen.
“The smart city controls market is awash with pilot applications looking for a business case, LPWA networks waiting for a critical mass of devices, and vendors hoping for a path to profit,” said Will Gibson, CEO Telensa. “We’re different. Our networks are proven at commercial scale and our applications are sold on a sustainable business case. This investment is recognition of Telensa’s success and enables us to expand to meet the growing demand for our solutions.”
“Smart city technologies are about harnessing previously isolated information and infrastructure to drive energy efficiency, automation and better decision-making,” said Patrick Sheehan, founder and partner at Environmental Technologies Fund. “Telensa’s success is built on robust wireless technology and an application business case that works for the whole ecosystem. We look forward to helping the team accelerate the growth of this thriving business.”
“Telensa has an impressive track record of technical innovation and has been consistently winning new clients in the US, Europe and the Middle East,” said Andrew Hunter, a director at Silicon Valley Bank’s UK Branch. “We’re delighted to provide additional capital to enable Telensa’s further growth.”
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