In a recent announcement, Soracom, provider of a cloud-native connectivity-as-a-service platform for the Internet of Things (IoT), made public its participation as lead investor in a $10 million Series A funding of UnaBiz. UnaBiz is the exclusive provider of Sigfox connectivity in Singapore and Taiwan, operating a low-power wide area network (LPWAN) that reaches nearly 100 percent of the population in the two regions.
The investment is the second made by the Soracom IoT Fund program, which was launched earlier this year by Soracom’s parent company, KDDI Corporation. Soracom acts as a driver of the fund’s investment decisions, and is actively working to accelerate development of a global IoT ecosystem through funding and collaboration.
“The investment in UnaBiz reflects our strategy to build a global IoT infrastructure by partnering with leaders in technology development and implementation,” said Daichi Funato, Co-Founder and COO, Soracom and leader of the fund program. “UnaBiz has built a strong partner network across its markets and is recognized as the most promising IoT Networking Platform in the region. We have collaborated with them since they first brought the Sigfox network into Singapore and Taiwan and look forward to building on this success.”
"The closing of this round is a step towards our common vision of global scale IoT transformation," said Philippe Chiu, Co-Founder and CTO, UnaBiz. "The combined expertise of Soracom in platform and cloud services and of UnaBiz in energy efficient IoT solutions will drive development of new offers, catalyzing IoT adoption in our respective territories."
Expanded collaboration between UnaBiz and Soracom will include device development to enrich the capabilities and ease-of-use of UnaBiz connectivity and sensor modules in IoT systems, and to simplify integration of solutions into global IoT communications networks. The companies also will work to extend end-to-end solutions addressing such areas such as facilities management, operations and maintenance and energy management in aerospace, smart cities and other vertical markets.
Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.Edited by
Ken Briodagh
