Industrial IoT startup Samsara announced it has raised a $40m Series C round. This brings the San Francisco based company total fundraising to over $80 million since their start in 2015
This round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Andreessen Horowitz who also took part in the company’s first two rounds.
The company offers solutions such as remote monitoring, cold chain tracking, and power monitoring. Its fleet monitoring solution consists of in-vehicle hardware (Cellular gateways, sensors, WiFi hotspot), apps for drivers, and cloud dashboard that provides real-time location, sensor data, reports, and alerts.
The hardware and software solution can be deployed in light & heavy vehicles, trailers, and refrigerated cargo. The list of available hardware includes IoT gateways, environmental monitors, camera modules, input modules, and power monitors.
“We’ve been developing these systems for very serious security conscious customers for over a decade, and so right off the bat, we started building Samsara with security in mind. Everything is encrypted end to end,” said Kiren Sekar, Samsara’s vice president of marketing and product management.
The VG33 telematics device costs $99, plus a $33 monthly license fee.
The power monitoring solution is aimed towards companies with distributed sites and assets. The company’s cold chain solution enables real-time temperature visibility. Fleetmatics and Honeywell are the established competitors of Samsara.
There’s an uptick in the manufacturing and sales of specialty sensors and tools for fleet and asset monitoring. Venture capitalists and established companies are pouring in investments for the promising startups in the industrial IoT space.
Cisco recently announced to acquire Viptella, a San Jose-based industrial networking startup for $610M. Similarly, EquipmentShare, a construction machinery marketplace-cum telematics platform raised $26M in its Series B funding.
