gains. But after the post-“Shark Tank” jolt, sales of the Doorbot were “kind of tailing off,” he says, and the team felt it was “not a good enough product to go viral.”
“So we said, ‘Let’s rebuild everything,’” Siminoff says.
Ring hired more engineers to help design and construct the new device. The company again came close to running out of money around October 2014, when the Ring was scheduled to start selling. But Siminoff says that thanks in part to a crush of media—“we must’ve had every bit of press for the day”—the launch was successful.
Over time, more homeowners started hearing about the devices, and buying them. Today, Siminoff’s face—and Ring’s gadgets—seem to be everywhere you turn.
The company now has about 400 employees, roughly double its headcount fourth months ago.
Ring raised $28 million last August in a Series B funding round; among the participating funds and investors was Madison-based American Family Ventures. Then came a $61 million round of financing in March led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fortune reported.
Siminoff says it’s about more than the money, though. “Our mission is to reduce crime in communities,” he says.
In May 2015, Ring and the Los Angeles Police Department kicked off a pilot program aimed at reducing crime in the city’s Wilshire Park neighborhood by providing residents complimentary connected doorbells. Six months later, the LAPD said burglaries in the neighborhood had decreased by 55 percent.
