TrackNet, a Swiss startup providing LoRaWAN IoT solutions, recently raised USD$7 million in Series A funding and plans to unveil its first complete LoRa solution at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in February.
TrackNet, a Swiss startup providing LoRaWAN IoT solutions, recently raised USD$7 million in Series A funding and plans to unveil its first complete LoRa solution at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in February.
By June, TrackNet expects to see its hybrid LoRa and Wi-Fi routers with seven sensors in production, including a wearable location monitor, a motion sensor for security, and an environmental monitor for temperature and humidity.
The company will target smart home and commercial users tracking assets and monitoring buildings. And its product aims to bring relatively low-cost LoRa sensors to home automation market with $20 to $30 less than the retail price.
The funding was led by two companies, Minol Zenner Group and Gemtek Corporation. Minol Zenner makes measuring equipment while Gemtek is an original equipment manufacturer of telecommunication equipment and also develops LoRa products.
LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network) is a type of wireless telecommunication network supporting long-range communication with low energy consumption. According to Beecham Research, LPWAN applications will account for 26% of the IoT connectivity market with 345 million connections by 2020.
LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide-Area Network), meanwhile, is one of the leading technologies under LPWAN. It brings long-range capability, low-cost and long battery life features to sensors while competing with NB-IoT and Sigfox.
Plans for deploying LoRa networks have been announced by many Asian operators and those in Europe, except for Telefonica and Vodaphone, TrackNet CEO and co-founder Hardy Schmidbauer told EETimes. American cable operator Comcast has announced it will support the technology while China also shows interests.
The investment in TrackNet is expected to bring Gemtek on LPWAN’s growth path. Minol Zenner hopes to transform its metering business by utilizing TrackNet’s solution.