The home networking specialist Plume announced it has closed a new financing round of USD 85 million. This includes USD 60 million in Series D preferred equity and USD 25 million in debt financing, bringing Plume's total equity funding to USD 123 million.
The new investor syndicate, including Charter Communications, Qualcomm Ventures, Belkin and Service Electric Cablevision, took 75 percent of the Series D round. Existing investors, including Liberty Global and Shaw Communications also participated in the round. The debt facility was provided by Silicon Valley Bank and WestRiver Group. Andrew Ip, senior VP for technology at Charter, will join Plume's board following the investment.
Plume's system for optimising home Wi-Fi networks has been adopted by over 30 leading communications service providers. Billed as a smart home system, Plume's cloud-based OpenSync software communicates with the Wi-Fi point to help manage and upgrade home connectivity and entertainment services without the need for repeated firmware updates. In addition to ISPs, the open-source system has been widely adopted by major hardware manufacturers and is now available on over 15 million access points and devices, Plume said. The company just announced that it's contributing OpenSync to the TIP Access Point Wi-Fi Software Stack.
