KPCB in $24m Relayr series-B

Munich Venture Partners is also among the investors. Munich Re invested via Hartford Steam Boiler (HSB), its equipment breakdown insurer. At the same time, HSB and Relayr announced their collaboration to develop customised insurance products that aims to provide insurance for Relayr's customers making IoT investments.

The backing of Relayr by HSB has potential to save the insurer money in the long term, since sensor-equipped machinery can be maintained in a more timely and efficient manner, and therefore could reduce costs for insurance companies.

One competitor for Relayr in the German market is CommSolid, which develops communication technology for healthcare, smart-homes, transport, logistic systems and industrial applications. The startup received early-stage investment from High-Tech Gründerfonds in July.

Previous funding
In November 2015, Relayr raised an $11m series-A round from Munich Venture Partners, KPCB, Tom Noonan and its own CEO Josef Brunner.

The business raised its $2.3m seed round in September 2014 from Josef Brunner through his vehicle AFT Ventures and from Tom Noonan.

Company
Founded in 2013 and based in Berlin, Relayr develops an IoT platform, embedding physical objects with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity to enable these objects to collect and exchange data.

The company has developed WunderBar, a hardware sensor kit that contains a collection of freely programmable sensors, metering and transmission modules for further use in technical equipment. Relayr also provides an open-source software development kit for developers. The company has 40 employees.

People
KPCB – Wen Hsieh (partner).
Hartford Steam Boiler – Greg Barats (CEO).
Relayr – Josef Brunner (CEO).

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