Avaak, the San Diego startup that specializes in ultra low-power wireless video networking technology, says today it has raised $10 million in a Series B round of venture funding led by Qualcomm Ventures, the San Diego chipmaker’s strategic investment arm. Existing investors Trinity Ventures, InterWest Partners, and Leapfrog Ventures joined in the round. The three Silicon Valley VC firms invested about $7 million in Avaak’s first round in 2007.
As I explained last year, Avaak sells a wireless Internet gateway and two small video cameras, which are linked with the gateway through a wireless mesh network, enabling consumers to monitor their homes or businesses remotely. Users can access the real-time video feed via the Internet on their computer or a mobile device.
Avaak co-founder and CEO Gioia Messinger says in a statement released by the company that the additional capital would be used to expand Avaak’s Vue system into retail distribution, and to make further enhancements to the company’s products. Messinger, who is attending the DEMO Spring 2010 conference in Palm Desert, CA, could not be reached for comment earlier today.
Nagraj Kashyap, who is vice president of Qualcomm Ventures (and is also attending the Demo conference), said in a statement, “Avaak has taken video monitoring to a new level of simplicity, allowing consumers to view live video on their mobile devices… Qualcomm is pleased to support Avaak as it enters its next exciting growth phase.”
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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