From left: Mike Brennan, Enterprise Ireland; Wia founder and CEO Conall Laverty; and Barry Downes, managing partner at Suir Valley Ventures. Image: Louise Dunne
Backed with a fresh round of funding to the tune of €750,000, Wia wants to build its team, as well as its technology platform.
In what will more than double its current headcount of six, Wia’s recently raised €750,000 could kick-start the next wave of IoT advances in Ireland.
Suir Valley Ventures and Enterprise Ireland are involved in the current round, with plans for seven additional staff to now join Wia’s growing team. Suir Valley’s Brian Kinane will also join Wia’s board of directors.
Based in Dublin, Wia wants to further establish its cloud platform as the ‘go-to’ enabling technology, powering the rapidly growing internet of things (IoT) market.
The company – a former Start-up of the Week on Siliconrepublic.com – is focusing on launching its latest product, incorporating the world’s first off-the-shelf IoT billing system later this year.
With that, and the investment and growth, the team is pretty excited.
Thrilled to bring in experience
“We are thrilled to bring the experience and knowledge from Suir Valley Ventures as partners with us on a milestone in Wia’s journey,” said founder and CEO Conall Laverty.
“IoT, through which devices communicate with each other, is playing an ever-increasing role in both corporate and domestic life around the world, and we believe our platform will take it to the next level.”
Now two years old, Wia’s cloud platform is used by developers in more than 85 countries, according to the company.
A winner of NDRC’s LaunchPad investor day last year, Wia’s looking to tap into what is an exploding market.
Estimates vary, but millions of devices are connected to the internet every day, with billions of euros spent on services and all things IoT every 24 hours.
Wia’s IoT cloud platform enables developers to turn any type of sensing device into a secure, smart and useful application in a matter of minutes.
Right to invest
“Wia offers a compelling product which enables connectivity and information-sharing between devices and sensors,” said Ben Hurley, CEO of NDRC.
“They have a really strong team in place, with deep technology expertise and clear ambition.
“From NDRC’s perspective, the company’s potential and capacity for growth was clear when we invested in them initially in 2016 through our investment and acceleration programme, and then with further follow-on funding this year.”
Barry Downes, managing partner at Suir Valley Ventures, said: “We are delighted to announce that we are leading the seed venture capital round for Wia.
“IoT is an important focus area for the fund, and an area of tremendous growth and productivity for enterprises and the economy.
“Conall has led a superb team to develop a groundbreaking IoT platform that is the easiest and fasted way to link sensors and devices to develop IoT applications.”
