Chicago-based Konekt is a company that offers a unique toolkit to make it easy and affordable for anyone to build connected devices that work everywhere. The primary investors in this round include NextView Ventures, Mucker Capital, and Tyler Willis Syndicate. And this round also included Maiden Lane, Chris Muhr (SVP of EMEA at Groupon), and Rajen Ruparell (Co-Founder of Groupon International + Non Executive Advisor Groupon).
Konekt solves is able to solve many of the range and signal fidelity problems associated with WiFi and Bluetooth by connecting devices to the Internet using cellular connectivity. Konekt has robust APIs for device management and a cloud platform for device communication.
“Konekt is the missing link in the Machine-to-Machine and Internet of Things market,” said Konekt co-founders Ben Forgan (CEO) and Pat Wilbur (CTO) in a statement. “Previously, it has been expensive and inconvenient to connect devices to the Internet via cellular connectivity. With Konekt, makers, OEMs and systems integrators of all sizes and levels of sophistication can now build devices that easily and securely connect to the Internet with cellular connectivity. We are making enterprise grade tools, technologies, and connectivity options available at the consumer level. The consumerization of enterprise technology is a tried and true model that has been applied successfully in other areas; we believe that there is a major opportunity for an M2M platform that simplifies the process and puts makers and developers first.”
