Sigfox announces record funding round
Sigfox, the world’s leading provider of connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced it is closing its Series E funding round of €150 million to accelerate the expansion of its global network and soon reach worldwide coverage.
Salesforce, Total, Henri Seydoux, Alto Invest, Swen CP and Tamer Group will join Sigfox as new investors. Existing shareholders including Bpifrance, Elliott, Intel Capital, Air Liquide, Idinvest Partners and IXO, will also re-invest in the company. Additional new investors are also expected to join this financing round shortly to reach the €150 million level.
The IoT opens up new and exciting opportunities by connecting the physical world to the Internet. With its global network, Sigfox gives a voice to billions of objects, thus allowing them to play a pivotal role in our social and economic development.
In just five years, Sigfox has built a unique global wireless network that provides a simple, efficient connectivity offer, enabling devices to connect to the cloud at ultra low-cost and using minimal energy. No other network than Sigfox’s has a worldwide footprint and can claim to connect fully autonomous energy harvesting objects. Thanks to Sigfox, every object will connect to the cloud at minimal cost, by relying only on the surrounding energy sources. This promise, along with the significant developments made by the company over the past 18 months, have contributed to the successful closing of this round of funding.
With more than 10 million objects registered on its network and coverage currently spanning 26 countries, Sigfox is reinforcing its position as a global leader in the IoT. This new round of funding will enable the company to expand its international network to 60 countries by 2018 and reach financial breakeven point.
The company sees Industry 4.0 as one of the main growth paths driving the development of the IoT. The need for predictive maintenance as well as the continued evolution of its business model towards more services are some of the reasons behind Total’s decision to join Engie and Air Liquide as active shareholders supporting Sigfox’s international development.
“We are pleased to support the development of SigFox because the technology offered by the company can be critical to accelerate the deployment of the Internet of Things. This is their lead acquired on the market in a short time and their ability to accelerate the deployment scale IoT solutions that motivated our investment, “commented Patrick Pouyanné, Managing Director of Total. “This type of solution will improve the performance and operational safety of industrial operations, reduce operating costs, but also be used to better serve our customers.”
Another key opportunity is the optimisation of industrial processes leveraging big data. For this reason, Sigfox plans to integrate with Salesforce’s IoT Cloud, thereby enabling richer customer journeys across global consumer and business use cases. By connecting unconnected objects, Sigfox can facilitate deeper experiences via its global, homogenous and scalable network.
Intel Capital, Idinvest Partners and IXO PE, which are historical shareholders of SIGFOX, actively participated in this round.
“We strongly believe that Sigfox has unlocked the IoT connectivity bottleneck and will bring billions of objects online in the near future. Its cost effective, easy to use, open platform solution is set to become the standard for low power object connectivity, bringing massive productivity gains to the corporate world and everyday benefits to end customers”, said Franck Tuil, Elliott’s Senior Portfolio Manager.
“I created Parrot 22 years ago, and I know how much it takes to carry out ambitious projects on a large scale. I am impressed by the huge progress made by Sigfox over the last 3 years I have spent as a member of Sigfox’s board of directors. I am now convinced of the colossal growth potential of the market Sigfox successfully addresses. Alongside the financial investment I am making today in the company, I am willing to provide Sigfox’s management with my support as an entrepreneur”, said Henri Seydoux, CEO of Parrot.
“The Internet of Things is one of the next big transformational technologies, and we are proud to support Sigfox as the infrastructure leader. We are pleased to see a strong startup ecosystem being built around this world-class technology.”, said Paul François Fournier, Executive Director of Bpifrance.
Commenting on the announcement, Xavier Drilhon, deputy CEO of Sigfox said, “I joined Sigfox 18 months ago because of the incredibly powerful vison of its founders and the unique positioning of the company as a fundamental enabler of the IoT revolution. Our rapid international expansion made possible thanks to the support of our local operators, as well as the growth of our ecosystem, were key to securing this new fundraising. This will allow the company to accelerate the deployment of its network from 26 countries today to over 60 within the next two years, representing 90 per cent of the worldwide GDP.”
“When Ludovic Le Moan and I met in 2010, we agreed that Sigfox could change the world by bringing the virtual and physical worlds together through a new paradigm based on the fundamental principles of astrophysics. Today, we have created the equivalent of the world's largest radio telescope for IoT. Our network is able to connect hundreds of billions of objects to the Internet through advanced radio techniques.”
The round comprises a “greenshoe” that will allow new strategic and financial partners to join the share capital of Sigfox shortly.
Lazard and Goldman Sachs acted as financial advisors to Sigfox, with Skadden acting as legal advisor.
About SIGFOX
Sigfox is the world’s leading provider of connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). The company has built a global network to connect billions of devices to the Internet while consuming as little energy as possible, as simply as possible.
Sigfox’s unique approach to device-to-cloud communications addresses the three greatest barriers to global IoT adoption: cost, energy consumption, and global scalability. Today, the network is present in 26 countries and on track to cover 60 by 2018 – covering a population of 397 million people. With millions of objects connected and a rapidly growing partner ecosystem, Sigfox empowers companies to create new innovations on the IoT. Founded in 2010 by Ludovic Le Moan and Christophe Fourtet, the company is headquartered in Labège near Toulouse, France’s “IoT Valley”. Sigfox also has offices in Paris, Madrid, Munich, Boston, San Francisco, Dubai and Singapore. www.sigfox.com
