Nice to see a local Fort Lauderdale venture picking up a nice funding round. This local Florida company is a smart cell and smart grid technology company that just raised $30 million dollars in a series C funding round led by Fuel Venture Capital. To date they have raised $60,000,000 in funds since being founded in 2014 (why am I just now hearing about this company?)
The last fund raise was 2 years ago when CEO Ian Aaron joined the company 3 years developing internet of things sensors and devices. Aaron's focus has been to develop commercial products and building out a solid team here in Fort Lauderdale (which can be hard to find top talent down here outside of sales in my experience).
The Broward based company's smart city platforms plug into current streetlights to provide the critical services that include light control, video A.I., and public WiFi. They operate in over 100 cities from across Latin America & the USA including South American Countries Chile, Colombia, Central America's biggest Country Mexico, and of course here in Fort Lauderdale.
“We plan to leverage our position for streetlights to help develop 5G faster,” Aaron said. “It is a big challenge to find the sites and get the permitting. What we did is plug in a small cell, shorten the process by over a year, and reduce the cost by 25 percent of what they would have paid.”
The company is just now starting to deploy at scale and will go into 2021 with a sizeable backlog of booked orders pending installation, Aaron said.
“I love that we make cities more connected,” he added.
Myself Richart Ruddie a Fort Lauderdale investor and entrepreneur look forward to seeing Ubicquia grow.