France's Sigfox raises €100m

Ellie Pullen
11 February 2015

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French cellular network operator Sigfox, backed by a consortium of VCs, has raised an impressive €100m ($115m) in its latest funding round from both strategic and financial sponsors.

Sigfox's existing venture capital backers Elaia Partners, iXO Private Equity, Partech Ventures, BPI France and Idinvest Partners all reinvested in the round.

The existing investors were joined by Elliott Management Corporation, Telefonica, SK Telecom, NTT Docomo Ventures, GDF Suez, Aliad (the corporate venture arm of Air Liquide Group) and Eutelstat.

The substantial funding round will be used by Sigfox to expand into new markets, with the business predominantly focusing on the US. It has already rolled out its services in France, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands.

The round comprises a first close of around €80m ($93m) and a greenshoe of €20m ($22m) to allow new investors to join the round in the next few months.

Previous funding
In March last year, the company raised €15m from a consortium comprising Idinvest, BPI France, Elaia, Intel Capital, Partech and Ixo.

Prior to that, the company raised €10m in September 2012 from existing backers Elaia, Ixo and Partech and new backer Intel, which contributed €3.5m to the round.

Previously, Elaia, Ixo and Partech had supplied Sigfox with €2m in January 2011.

Company
Founded in 2009, Sigfox is headquartered in Labège with additional offices located in Mountain View, California, and Madrid. It employs 60 staff.

Sigfox is a cellular network operator specialising in low-throughput machine-to-machine (M2M) and internet-of-things communications.

The company has developed ultra-narrow-band technology, which is designed to operate a network on unlicensed frequency bands while combining long-range data transmissions.

People
Anne Lauvergeon is the chairman of Sigfox, while Ludovic Le Moan is its CEO.

Advisers
Company - Lazard (Corporate finance); Granrut Avocats (Legal).