Wiliot, an Israel-based manufacturer of battery-free chips, raised $200m yesterday in a series C round led by internet and telecommunications group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
E-commerce firm Amazon, pharmaceutical firm Merck Group, shipping firm Maersk, mobile network operator NTT Docomo, mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, electronics manufacturer Samsung and telecoms firm Verizon took part in the round through AWS, M Ventures, Maersk Growth, NTT Docomo Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Venture Investment and Verizon Ventures respectively.
Packaging materials producer Avery Dennison invested directly, and the round was filled out by venture capital firms 83North, Grove Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Vintage Investment Partners.
Founded in 2017, Wiliot has developed battery-free Bluetooth tags that can attach to any product or packaging to detect a range of physical and environmental data and are able to communicate with smartphones, wifi access points and internet-of-things (IoT) devices.
The data collected by the chips is transferred into the Wiliot Cloud, where machine learning algorithms translate it into insights for businesses across a range of industries.
The company will use the funding to scale its team and expand its channels ahead of the launch of a new iteration of its product that is expected to offer next-generation performance.
Amit Lubovsky, an investor at SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages Vision Fund 2, will join Wiliot’s board of directors in conjunction with the round.
Wiliot secured $30m in series B funding in early 2019 from Amazon, Avery Dennison, Samsung Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, M Ventures, NVP, 83North and Grove Venture Partners at a reported post-money valuation of $120m.
The company collected additional series B funding in February 2020, an amount reported by Globes to be in the region of $20m. Vintage Investment Partners led the extension, with contributions from beverage producer PepsiCo, Maersk Growth, Verizon Ventures and NTT Docomo Ventures.
The series B followed $14m in series A funding from NVP, 83North and Grove Venture Partners in January 2017, which was followed by an undisclosed amount of funding in November the same year from investors including Qualcomm Ventures and M Ventures.