DevicePilot, formerly startup 1248.io, has raised £600,000 from Angel backers for an IoT device management service.
I'd struggled with 1248.io in the past, both with the name and getting a handle on what they were actually planning to do. It raised £250,000 back in 2014, which seemed to be for the development of a device database called Geras. It also offered consultancy services to build scalable IoT platforms for customers around that technology. With Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure now offering these services, it makes sense to pivot.
“Since starting the company we’ve delivered IoT technology with some great partners,” said DevicePilot CEO Pilgrim Beart. “For example, our HyperWeave universal IoT gateway for ARM and our leading role in the development of the IoT Hypercat standard. But as we engaged with more and more connected-product companies across many different verticals it became clear to us that they all suffer from the same problem as they scale – managing their devices.”
It is developing universal software for locating, monitoring and managing connected devices at scale. DevicePilot is completely agnostic, allowing the user to connect any device across any platform, with simple and easy integration.
DevicePilot is now in alpha stage with a range of customers, both big and small, to help them to manage their growing device estate. DevicePilot Asset Management provides information on what devices have been deployed in the field, who has them, where are they and what software are they running, for example. It will also monitor how many devices are actually working and use a triage process to discover any problems, while the Lifecycle Management functionality pro-actively configures and updates devices from deployment to end-of-life.
We ended-up being significantly over-subscribed for this round, which is testament to the strength of the team, the product focus and the exciting growth of the IoT market,” said Chairman Rob Dobson. CEO Beart and Chairman Dobsonhave each previously achieved $100m exits from new tech businesses and have a wealth of experience in scaling-up connected devices.
Angel investors aren't usually flagged up individually, so the fact that the company has done so is interesting as it tries to convince the market of the expertise behind it:
- Skyscanner founders Gareth Williams & Bonamy Grimes http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
technology/2016/02/25/how- edinburghs-skyscanner-became- a-billion-dollar-company/ - Serial telco entrepreneur Michael Berman http://www.singletrack.com/
why-singletrack/leadership/ michael-berman-cbe - Entrepreneur Gavin Dutch, founder of mobile app developer Kotikan https://kotikan.com/aboutus
- Industrial economist and entrepreneur Prof Irene Ng http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/
sci/wmg/people/profile/?wmgid= 849 - Serial entrepreneurs Joe and Wendy White http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/
08/entrepreneur-first-bags- the-moonfruit-founders-as-gps- in-its-new-56m-fund/ - Telefonica’s corporate accelerator Wayra Unlimited
The University of Cambridge owns a 1% “Gift Share” in recognition of Pilgrim Beart’s time as a Visiting Fellow at the University’s Computer Lab.
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