- Edge computing pioneer company Balena recently announced that it raised $14.4 million in Series B
Balena (formerly known as resin.io) — an edge computing pioneers — announced it raised $14.4 million in Series B funding led by OpenView. And existing investors including Threshold Ventures, Aspect Ventures, and GE Ventures also joined this round.
Balena was founded in 2013 by a team of developers who had experienced first-hand the frustration of deploying and managing fleets of connected devices. Once they realized that nothing existed to meet their needs, they decided to build a platform for all IoT developers.
“We believe that edge computing is the next major computing paradigm, and it needs a scalable development platform to match. We’re building that platform and making the edge accessible to mainstream developers,” said Balena CEO Alexandros Marinos.
Balena has a goal of unlocking the potential of physical computing by removing friction for IoT fleet owners. And the company’s full-stack platform offers a complete end-to-end solution that makes it easy for every developer to build applications for IoT and the Edge.
Balena had built the company with a single question in mind: “What does a mainstream developer need to succeed on the edge?” And one of the team’s first key breakthroughs was getting Docker running on a Raspberry Pi. Since then, Balena built an entire container-based software platform for developing, deploying, and managing code on fleets of IoT devices. Plus Balena recently released its first hardware product called the balenaFin (a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module designed for professional IoT deployments).
“The edge has unique characteristics, including heterogeneous hardware, networking, and physical environments, that require a new platform, one that has been purpose-built from the ground up,” added Marinos. “A platform with a complete set of tools that solve the intricate challenges faced by fleet owners – which is exactly what we’ve built.”
Now Balena-powered devices are being used by customers around the world in everything from robotics and manufacturing to transport and building management. And by enabling developers to scale their fleets quickly and easily, the company is growing the number of devices managed in the Balena platform by nearly 4 times year-over-year.
With this round of funding, it will expand Balena’s capabilities and continue building products that make the connected world accessible to all. And the company is aiming to become the default choice for developers building IoT projects. Balena is also looking to expand its globally distributed team and is on the lookout for talented people across many areas of the business, from engineering and operations to growth, marketing, and sales.
“From prototype to production, the next generation of edge applications are being built on Balena. We couldn’t be more excited to support their growth as they catalyze a new age in edge computing,” explained OpenView partner Mackey Craven.
