TMCnet News
United Kingdom,United States : CISCO invests in AYLA and EVRYTHNG as part of an $150 million fund [TendersInfo (India)](TendersInfo (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Cisco s investment arm is committing $150 million to back early-stage companies in the internet sector, and has begun with investments in 2 startups and 1 accelerator. Cisco participated in funding rounds of London s Evrythng, Ayla Networks, Alchemist Accelerator. The funding adds to Cisco Investments announcing $100 million commitment to startups focused on the internet of things. Cisco Investment has stakes in more than 80 companies and 35 funds as part of a $2 billion portfolio. It has more than 40 people responsible for making investments in companies of all sizes. Other investments include Whiptail, Belly, Phunware and Platfora. Since, Ayla launched its hardware and software platform for big companies, it has won several large customers in China, where the internet of things is a pretty acceptable and obvious next step for business. In China, many consumers have skipped the laptop and gone straight to mobile, which makes them ready for the next step of controlling and connected devices. There is a hundred times more projects this year and that same jump in projects for next year. Ayla raised $14.5 million in Series B financing from Cisco; the International Finance Corporation; Linear Venture; SAIF Partners, one of China s largest venture capital firms; and SJF Ventures. Existing investors Crosslink Capital and Voyager Capital also participated in the new funding round. The money will help Ayla continue to expand its business in China, and support its unnamed corporate clients. Evrythng is all about software. It offers a cloud-based platform that ties to hardware modules manufactured by a few chip makers. It believes that the hardware and cloud elements should be separate. Evrythng has a total of $7.5 million in Series A funding from Cisco, Atomico, private equity investors BHLP LLC and venture capital firm Dawn Capital. Alchemist Accelerator is an enterprise focused accelerator that has Salesforce.com, Citrix and Microsoft as backers or supporters. These investments seem to intrude on Cisco s eventual impact in this sector. The hard work of getting devices online and then managing them seems like a direction Cisco should prepare to go. (c) 2014 Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company |