Cisco Just Invested In This IoT LPWAN Startup

Cisco has invested a stake in Internet of Things startup Actility, a company specializing in low power WAN (LPWAN) solutions for IoT.

On Tuesday at the LoRa Alliance event in Philadelphia, the French startup revealed that Cisco participated in its $75 million Series D funding round which will be spent on creating more industrial IoT solutions in key verticals including logistics and supply chain, smart buildings and energy and utilities.

’Cisco is focused on enabling the rapid proliferation of IoT through LPWAN technologies, including LoRaWAN gateways and geolocation services,’ said Amit Chaturvedy, head of IoT Investments and Acquisitions at Cisco, in a statement. ’We invest in companies that share our passion for helping customers and are leaders in their technologies. Actility is dedicated to a great customer experience through the LPWAN IoT on-boarding, operating and monetization experience.’

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The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant and Actility were some of the founding members of the LoRa Alliance, along with others vendors such as IBM and Semtech.

The alliance, founded in 2015, is striving to standardize LPWAN to enable IoT, machine-to-machine and smart city applications. LoRa supports the LoRaWAN network protocol, which is intended for the Internet of Things with bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services.

’Cisco’s strategic investment in Actility further enhances the collaboration of two complementary IoT solution providers with big plans for the connected world,’ said Mike Mulica, CEO of Actility, in a statement.

Actility touts itself as the industry leader in LPWAN for large-scale infrastructure. The startup owns the ThingPark IoT Solution platform which enables scalable LPWAN and interoperable IoT applications and services.

Other investors in Actility include BNP Paribas, Creadev, Orange, Inmarsat and Robert Bosch Venture Capital.

Cisco has been betting big on IoT over the past few years. In 2016, the network leader acquired cloud-based IoT provider Jasper Technologies for a whopping $1.4 billion to ramp up IoT sales.