Millennial Net Closes $15 Million Series B Funding Round
BCE Capital Joins General Catalyst Partners, Globespan Capital Partners and Kodiak Venture Partners
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--May 24, 2004--Millennial Net, Inc., the leading developer of ultra low-power, self-organizing, wireless mesh networking systems, today announced it has closed $15 million in Series B funding. New investor BCE Capital, the venture arm of Bell Canada Enterprises, led the round, which also included participation from all Series A investors: General Catalyst Partners, Globespan Capital Partners and Kodiak Venture Partners. The new investment will support expanded sales, engineering and marketing initiatives.
Millennial Net provides a complete, deployment-ready, wireless mesh networking system. The company's comprehensive offering allows sensor and electronics OEMs and system integrators to expand their revenues and product lines by enabling ubiquitous remote data monitoring applications for building automation, industrial, medical, utility and security markets. With Millennial Net's end-to-end wireless sensor networking solutions, end users are equipped with increased visibility and improved control over their dynamic network environments.
"The range of applications and markets that benefit from Millennial Net's wireless sensor networking solutions made the company a particularly compelling investment opportunity," said Jim Orlando, Managing Director, BCE Capital. "Millennial Net is poised to become the de facto leader in this space, through its focus on providing practical solutions and commitment to delivering customer value for today's networking and remote-monitoring challenges."
Orlando will join Millennial Net's board of directors, which currently includes Ullas Naik, Globespan Capital Partners; Mike O'Neill of Kodiak Venture Partners; and John Simon of General Catalyst Partners.
Millennial Net continues to win favor in the investment community for its pioneering role in wireless sensor networking developments and its ability to turn its technology innovations into customer value for a variety of markets and applications. In April 2004, Dow Jones VentureWire selected the company as an Investors' Choice Award winner at its annual Wireless Ventures conference, recognizing Millennial Net as a start-up technology company that is best positioned for long-term success in the wireless space.
"The continued commitment of our existing venture capital partners and new investment from BCE Capital serves as an endorsement of our technology leadership and ability to execute our vision of a more connected world through wireless sensor networking," said Andy May, president and chief executive officer, Millennial Net. "This financing will fuel our growth and enable us to more quickly scale our production, sales and marketing operations to meet growing demand for our technology."
About Millennial Net
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., with offices in Tokyo, Japan, Millennial Net is the world's leading developer of hardware and software for self-organizing, low power wireless sensor networks. Millennial Net's award-winning networking software and tiny micro-power hardware elements, called i-Beans®, allow instrumentation and sensing devices like gauges, sensors and actuators to connect and communicate with each other over self-organizing, self-healing networks. Patent-pending engineering enables the i-Bean to operate with an extremely low rate of power consumption on the energy of a 3-volt coin-sized battery for years at a time. Wireless sensor networks enable the remote monitoring and management of critical devices while providing continuous streams of previously unavailable data to enable more informed decision-making, better control and increased revenue opportunities. Wireless sensor networks are in use today for industrial, medical, consumer and military applications. Millennial Net is committed to advancing Wireless Sensor Networking...Anywhere. For more information, please visit www.millennial.net.