Samsara
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Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it intends to use the considerable pile of cash to help it expand globally and accelerate product development.
In July of last year, Skydio announced its $100 million Series C financing, and also debuted the X2, its first dedicated enterprise drone. The company also launched a suite of software for commercial and enterprise customers, its first departure from the consumer drone market where it had been focused prior to that raise since its founding in 2014.
Skydio’s debut drone, the R1, received a lot of accolades and praise for its autonomous capabilities. Unlike other consumer drones at the time, including from recreational drone maker DJI, the R1 could track a target and film them while avoiding obstacles without any human intervention required. Skydio then released the Skydio 2 in 2019, its second drone, cutting off more than half the price while improving on it its autonomous tracking and video capabilities.
Late last year, Skydio brought on additional senior talent to help it address enterprise and government customers, including a software development lead who had experience at Tesla and 3D printing company Carbon. Skydio also hired two Samsara executives at the same time to work on product and engineering. Samsara provides a platform for managing cloud-based fleet operations for large enterprises.
The applications of Skydio’s technology for commercial, public sector and enterprise organizations are many and varied. Already, the company works with public utilities, fire departments, construction firms and more to do work including remote inspection, emergency response, urban planning and more. Skydio’s U.S. pedigree also puts it in prime position to capitalize on the growing interest in applications from the defense sector.
a16z previously led Skydio’s Series A round. Other investors who participated in this Series D include Lines Capital, Next47, IVP and UP.Partners.
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Samsara banks $100M at a $3.6B valuation for its internet-connected sensors
Sensor data platform Samsara confirmed this morning that it had closed a new round of funding from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst that values the startup at $3.6 billion.
The news was first reported by Cheddar, which spotted a filing with the state of Delaware on December 21 disclosing Samsara’s intent to raise a $100 million round at more than double the valuation it garnered upon its $50 million Series D this March.
“Our growth comes from bringing transformational new technologies to solve the problems of operational businesses, a massive segment of the economy that has long been underserved by the technology industry,” wrote Kiren Sekar, Samsara’s vice president of marketing and products, in the funding announcement. “Today, the advent of inexpensive sensors, high-bandwidth wireless connectivity, smartphones, and cloud computing enable these businesses to fully reap the benefits of 21st century technology.”
Founded in 2015, Samsara supports the transportation, logistics, construction, food production, energy and manufacturing industries with its internet-connected sensor systems, which helps businesses collect data and derive insights to improve the efficiency of physical operations.
The company’s co-founders are Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket, who previously launched Meraki, an enterprise Wi-Fi startup acquired by Cisco in an all-cash $1.2 billion deal in 2012.
Samsara’s latest financing brings the company’s total raised to $230 million. According to PitchBook, Andreessen Howoritz and General Catalyst are the only two private investors in the company, with Marc Andreessen and Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst representing the venture capital firms as lead investors on several Samsara deals.
San Francisco-based Samsara says revenue grew 250 percent in 2018 as its customer base swelled to 5,000. As for how it will deploy the new capital, the company plans to hire 1,000 employees, double down on AI and computer vision technology and open its first East Coast office in Atlanta.
The startup has yet to spend a dime of its last financing round, evidence it, like many other venture-funded startups, is pulling in capital before a market downturn strikes the industry and makes it increasingly difficult to raise hefty sums at impressive valuations.
“While the company already had a healthy balance sheet – we hadn’t dipped into our previous round of funding – the new capital enables us to accelerate long-term product investments and expand into new markets while continuing to maintain a strong balance sheet over the long term,” wrote Sekar.
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Fleet management tracking provider Samsara raises $40M
Rapid changes in the shipping industry has caught the attention of investors who are starting to pour large sums of money into the industry. And likely for good reason: as a future where trucks are run autonomously becomes ever clearer, the sensors and software behind that is going to have to be able to keep up. One company, Samsara, is working on just those kinds of sensors and products to… Read More
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