iWire announced a Series A $34 million funding round, led by Noor Capital. The company will expand, over the coming years, its geographic presence across 12 countries, by building the digital communication infrastructure to power massive IoT.
iWire has so far raised more than $47 million, over the past three years. Bpifrance, the French sovereign wealth fund and a leading Export Credit Agency in Europe (Bpifrance Assurance Export acting on behalf of the French State) participated with Noor Capital in this funding round by granting a long-term equipment purchase option to iWire, through a Buyer Credit agreement.
Launched in April 2018, iWire builds country-wide communications networks to power massive IoT solutions, using Sigfox technology, 0G network pioneer and leading IoT service provider, since 2010. The IoT network allows large scale businesses such as utility companies, smart cities, smart facilities and logistics service providers to deploy massive IoT solutions in a fast, cost-effective and highly scalable way.
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The demand for dedicated IoT networks is growing worldwide and considering billions of connected devices, the timing of the network deployment is highly significant. iWire has already deployed the Sigfox network in the UAE in 2019. With these new funds, iWire wishes to extend its network coverage over new markets such as India, as well as Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Tunisia. Starting next year, iWire will be expanding its network to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and a few more countries in the Middle East, Africa are on the roadmap.
In addition to its network expansion and IoT service offerings, iWire is developing IoT devices under its own brand “iWire Technologies”. The company has great ambitions in this new business, as the market for connected devices is experiencing exponential growth. Forecasts show that the global IoT market estimated today to $200 billion is expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025. The number of connected devices estimated today at 35 billion may reach 75 billion over the next three to five years.
iWire is aiming to offer a wide range of high-quality connected products such as utility meters, gas sensors, health watches, smart ID, smoke detectors, container trackers and street lighting solutions. To expand its activity, iWire has targeted high-volume industries that use these connected products the most such as Utilities, Smart Cities, Smart Facilities, Digital Health and Smart Logistics. The strategy is to develop IoT products and sell them through distribution channels on a global scale. Having one of the largest communication networks, designed for massive IoT across multiple geographies, is highly synergistic.
To achieve this mission iWire seems to be well suited, as its knowledge of deploying the IoT networks has enabled it to understand the various challenges faced by the industry and especially to focus on the opportunities not only in emerging markets but also in Europe and in the US, over the years to come.
