MALVERN, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 18, 2013) - Zonoff, Inc., creators of the Zonoff Connected Home Platform, announced today that it has raised $3.8 million in venture capital funding. The series "A" round, led by Valhalla Partners and Grotech Ventures, both of Vienna, VA, will enable Zonoff to scale it's technical team and infrastructure in order to support ongoing customer growth with retailers, service providers and device makers on a worldwide basis.
"We're excited to reach this next milestone in our progress," explained co-founder and CEO Mike Harris. "This investment validates our approach in building a software platform for our channel partners, who are typically large consumer-facing companies that have deep and trusted ties with consumers."
Zonoff is the technology that connects the Internet of Things to everyone. As the "brains" of the connected home, Zonoff's technology brings together a wide range of devices in a single system that provides tangible lifestyle enhancements to the consumer. The Zonoff Connected Home Platform, which consists of Home, Cloud, and App software, works behind the scenes with the company's Channel Partners' products to deliver home automation, remote control, energy management, and safety monitoring, ranging in solutions from entry level to comprehensive. Zonoff also provides its Channel Partners with an innovative ecommerce platform that combines consumer education and merchandising to deliver ongoing revenue streams as consumers expand and upgrade their home.
"Whether you call it 'connected home,' 'smart home,' the 'Internet of things' or 'M2M' (machine-to-machine), this is shaping up to be a massive market, and Zonoff has the ideal leadership, team and experience to scale up for this global opportunity," stated Kiran Hebbar, General Partner of Valhalla Partners.
"Valhalla is excited to support Zonoff as they continue to build their footprint. The senior management team has deep and proven experience in delivering software platform solutions to the consumer electronics industry, which we believe is key in this fast-growing market. In fact, the this team has built and shipped more than 500 million consumer electronic devices worldwide over the past 15 years, and have also built and scaled Cloud services that integrate with embedded devices for millions of users worldwide," Hebbar explained.
According to Lawson DeVries, General Partner at Grotech Ventures, "The thing we like about Zonoff is that they are not attempting to build a consumer brand, but rather are empowering big name consumer brands who already have deep and long-lasting consumer relationships. We have closely examined this burgeoning space, and strongly believe that Zonoff has the ideal approach. They are a very capital-efficient company because they leverage their Channel Partners' existing hardware supply chains and economies of scale," said DeVries.
Valhalla's Hebbar went on to explain how they see Zonoff. "We believe that Zonoff holds a unique position in this market. For a long time, this has been a niche market dominated by established players with legacy software delivered by high-priced integrators. And on the other end of the spectrum, you see a lot of startups that are attempting to build their own brand and hardware, which is incredibly expensive and requires a very large organization," explained Hebbar. "But Zonoff owns the mass-market space, and is taking the smart approach by bringing their hardened software technology to the consumer market, leveraging the growing list of big brand-name devices that are connected, whether they are Z-Wave, ZigBee, IP, or other proprietary protocols to create a very user-friendly experience for consumers."
About Zonoff
Zonoff is the technology that connects the Internet of Things to everyone. As the "brains" of the Connected Home, Zonoff provides a comprehensive software platform that enables partners such as electronic device makers, service providers and retailers to deliver new products and services to the consumer mass market. The Zonoff Connected Home Platform consists of Home, Cloud, and App software and powers everything from entry level point solutions to comprehensive home automation, remote control, energy management, and safety monitoring. Zonoff also provides ongoing revenue opportunities for its channel partners as consumers expand and upgrade their home. For more information, visit www.Zonoff.com or follow via Twitter @ZonoffInc.
About Valhalla Partners
Valhalla Partners is a trusted partner and advisor to technology entrepreneurs in their quest to build world-class companies. Based in Vienna, Virginia, the firm's management team has made more than 120 investments over the past twenty years and produced almost $1 billion of investment proceeds. Valhalla prefers investments where the mission of the company is to innovate, challenge, and fundamentally change the dynamics of new and existing markets. Investments by Valhalla's team include Adaptly, Advertising.com, Vubiquity, JumpTap, LeftHand Networks, PlaceIQ, Progress Software, Proxicom, Qumulo, RealOps, Register.com, Riverbed Technologies, SafeNet, ServiceBench, SolidFire, Videology, Trilogy, and webMethods. Valhalla Partners brings the full power and network of its experienced team to every investment it makes, helping companies grow faster and smarter regardless of size or maturity. For more information visit www.ValhallaPartners.com or follow via Twitter @ValhallaVC.
About Grotech Ventures
Founded in 1984, Grotech Ventures is a leading early investor in high-potential technology companies. Grotech seeks innovative IT companies with particular emphasis on digital and social media; software and SaaS; security and storage technologies; healthcare information technology; and communications technology and services. Grotech continues to invest and add value throughout the growth of its portfolio companies. The firm has a strong combination of industry relationships and deep domain and operational expertise to accelerate growth. Grotech supports early-stage companies through investments starting at $500,000. For more information visit www.Grotech.com of follow via Twitter @GrotechVenture.
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