Tile, a US-based location tracking technology provider backed by internet group Tencent, secured $45m on Wednesday in a series C round led by private equity firm Francisco Partners.
Financial services firm SVB Financial Group also took part in the round, as did investment firm Bryant Stibel and venture capital firms GGV Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).
Founded in 2012, Tile has developed a small Bluetooth-powered device that enables users to keep track of items such as wallets, keys and laptops though their smartphone. Its cloud-based platform also notifies users if they have left items behind when leaving their house or workplace.
The company will use a portion of the series C proceeds to expand its partnerships with third-party product makers, while the remaining capital will go to accelerating international expansion and development of new products.
The round comes after Tile closed a $25m series B-1 round in mid-2017 led by BVP that also featured GGV Capital, Khosla Ventures and Lead Edge Capital.
BVP had previously led the company’s $18m series B round in 2016, investing alongside Tencent, GGV Capital, Khosla Ventures and Tandem Capital. Tile had revealed $13m in funding two years before that consisted of $9.5m in series A funding and a $3.5m seed round.
The seed round was led by Tencent while GGV Capital led the series A. Tandem Capital, Rothenberg Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Slow Ventures and various angel investors also contributed capital across the two rounds.