Industrial IoT firm Seeq raises $24 million from equity sale
Seattle-based industrial analytics company Seeq has raised $24 million from investors, according to a report in Computer Reseller News.
Seeq has sold $24.3 million of equity to an unnamed investor group, according to the report, which cites a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It wants to raise $29.9 million total.
The company raised $23 million in Series B funding in mid-2018, in a round led by the Altira Group, with participation also from Chevron Technology Ventures, Siemens-backed next47, Second Avenue Partners, plus existing investors.
Seeq’s software applications, Seeq Workbench and Seeq Organizer, seek to enable manufacturing organizations to analyze and distribute insights to improve production outcomes. Both are designed to run on-premise, on Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services cloud platforms, or in mixed edge and cloud setups.
The new funding will help the company expand its development and marketing resources, and also increase its presence in international markets.
IoT security firm Armis agrees $1.1 billion sale
Enterprise IoT security company Armis, which claims to be the largest IoT cyber-security company in Israel, will be acquired by software investor Insight Partners in a deal that values the firm at $1.1 billion.
The pair said it was the largest ever aquisition of an enterprise IoT security software provider.
Insight will acquire Armis for a cash valuation of $1.1 billion, with further participation from CapitalG, formerly Google Capital, for $100 million and rollover from certain existing stockholders.
Armis – Isareli owned, California headquartered – will continue to operate independently, managed by its co-founders, Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael, as chief executive and chief technology officer, respectively. It will make use of Insight’s “strategy and scale-up” division, Onsite.
Insight executives will serve on the Armis board of directors. The deal is expected to close in February.
Armis provides software for enterprises to organize and manage more traditional devices like laptops and smartphones and also newer IoT devices, like webcams, printers, HVAC systems, industrial control systems, and medical devices.
the company grew in 2018 and 2019 “across all verticals”, it said, including in high tech, healthcare, industrial, retail, smart cities, smart buildings, and transportation. The company claims to serve 25 per cent of Fortune 50 companies, alongside a range of large and mid-sized firms.
Its customers include Allergan, Mondelēz, Oracle and Sysco Foods.
Smart grid IoT provider Machfu raises $3.75 million
Maryland-based edge analytics provider Machfu has closed a $3.75 million Series A round of new funding. The new investment is led by CSL Ventures, with participation from existing and new investors, Blu Ventures, Texas Ventures and Texas Halo Fund.
The company, which serves the smart grid and oil and gas markets, claims to offer a data integration platform for legacy assets and sensors and cloud or legacy head-end systems
Prakash Chakravarthi, founder and chief executive at Machfu, commented: “The big problems impeding the growth of IIoT are security and the sheer variety of legacy protocols, wireless and wireline interfaces and we have solved that problem.”
He added: “We were looking to bring in lead investors who could be true partners. Another thing that attracted us towards CSL Ventures was their deep domain knowledge and broad industry network, which can help expand our customer base.”
Manufacturing IoT provider WITRAC secures $3.3 million
Spanish automotive and supply-chain IoT provider WITRAC has secured $3.3 million of funding in an investment round led by Goldacre Ventures and Mundi Ventures who also sit on the Spanish start-up’s board. Clave Mayor Tech Transfer and Mondragón Corporation also participated in the round.
WITRAC offers its it own hardware and software, to connect industrial assets, and gather insights from their data. Customers include Ford, Mercadona, Carrefour, Celsa, Volkswagen and Porcelanosa, among others. It works in 15 countries. The new funds will be used to expand into the US, Latin America, the UK, and Germany.
Javier Ferrer, the company’s chief executive, said the new funds will “consolidate WITRAC as a benchmark IIoT technology supplier in the UK, Germany and Spain and to prepare for an expansion into the US market in 2020”.
The funds raised will also enable WITRAC to accelerate further development of its IIoT hardware and software products in key areas such as analytics and advanced data processing.
