CUPERTINO, Calif. – Oct 26 2020- Celona, the first enterprise networking company to bridge the gap between LTE/5G cellular wireless and enterprise IT infrastructure, today announced it has closed a $30 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by NTTVC and Qualcomm Ventures LLC with participation from Celona’s initial investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Cervin Ventures. The new round of financing brings Celona’s total capital investment to date to $40 million USD.
“Our goal at Celona is to usher in a new era of enterprise services and applications leveraging 5G and give enterprises their own private mobile networks,” said Rajeev Shah, CEO and co-founder, Celona. “Our collaboration with NTTVC and Qualcomm Ventures validates our view that making 5G technology fully accessible to the enterprise will have a transformational impact on the future of networking.”
Celona is developing the only solution in the market that fully automates the deployment and operations of private LTE/5G wireless networks within the enterprise. Celona’s AI-ops based architecture enables the integration of cellular wireless functions with existing enterprise IT and cloud infrastructure as an overlay. In addition to enterprises, service providers and cloud providers can also leverage Celona’s platform to scale their reach within the enterprise market and accelerate their growth with new digital initiative enablement options that go beyond connectivity.
“As new cellular spectrum for private mobile networks is being made available around the world, we are excited to partner with Celona’s founding team to accelerate adoption of 5G for enterprises and operators,” said Vab Goel, founding partner at NTTVC. “With Celona, enterprises can deploy a mobile-first network, enabling new, real-time applications powering the future of enterprise connectivity.”
“With the increasing reliance on wireless connectivity to enable digital transformation initiatives, pervasive coverage and control over wireless performance has become essential for organizations,” said Alexandre Villela, senior director of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and managing director at Qualcomm Ventures, Latin America. “We are pleased to collaborate with Celona to accelerate 5G-powered innovation that will help transform enterprises.”
The proceeds from this funding round will be used to fuel Celona’s strategic growth initiatives that capitalize on fundamental changes within the enterprise market created by the availability of localized and shared spectrum around the world. This includes the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum in the United States, which is widely viewed as the most significant development in enterprise wireless since Wi-Fi.
The global rollout of 5G is accelerating the digital transformation of all industries by leveraging applications that exploit its high-speed and low latency capabilities. But until now, there has not been a complete solution available to organizations who are looking to completely bridge the divide between this emerging technology and existing IT platforms and architectures. That all changes with Celona.
ABOUT NTTVC
NTTVC is an independent venture capital firm formed in collaboration with NTT. Leveraging a unique partnership-focused model and deep industry network, NTTVC unlocks doors to relationships that can help startups reach global scale. With its $500M inaugural fund, the firm invests broadly in technology startups of all stages and sectors, with an emphasis on the future of enterprise, digital health and innovations powered by AI, machine learning and data. NTTVC is headquartered in Silicon Valley. Learn more at nttvc.com.
ABOUT QUALCOMM VENTURES
As the venture capital investment group of Qualcomm Incorporated, a world leader in next-generation wireless technologies, Qualcomm Ventures has been making strategic investments in technology companies that have the potential to dramatically transform our world since 2000. As a global investor, we’re focused on building the connections that bring our mobile future forward. Learn more at qualcommventures.com and follow Qualcomm Ventures on Twitter @QualcommVenture.
ABOUT CELONA
Celona, the enterprise 5G company, is focused on accelerating the adoption of business-critical apps on enterprise wireless and helping organizations implement a new generation of digital business initiatives. Taking advantage of new private spectrum models like Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), Celona’s solution architecture is designed to make cellular wireless technology accessible to enterprise organizations and their technology partners. Learn more at celona.io and follow Celona on Twitter @celonaio.
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