Mist, a start-up based in Cupertino, California, raised $28 million in Series B funding for its smart wireless networking that integrates Wi-Fi and Bluetooth location services.
Mist said its platform lets you think centrally and act locally through a combination of cloud-based intelligence and on premises enterprise-grade Access Points. Machine learning automates key tasks like event correlation, location, and clustering to dramatically simplify wireless operations. The platform collects ongoing real-time state information from every mobile device on the network. It leverages virtual BLE (vBLE) beacons to eliminate the setup and management hassles of physical beacons.
Additional features:
- Real-time visibility into user Radio Frequency (RF) environment – “RF glasses” give administrators a real-time view of the RF environment from the mobile device’s perspective. If a wireless user complains about a Wi-Fi or BLE problem, the Mist platform can be used to easily visualize in real-time exactly what their wireless environment looks like for accurate troubleshooting.
- BLE Asset tracking – Mist is the first vendor to deliver deep analytics on both Wi-Fi and BLE using a single converged platform (Access Points and cloud). Administrators can easily track the average and maximum number of wireless users or BLE-enabled devices in a given location, the number of visits per zone, who is visiting each zone, and what the wireless experience was during each visit.
- BT11 Access Point – The Mist BT11 is an industry-first enterprise-grade Access Point for Bluetooth Low Energy (version 4.2). It has a 16 antenna element steerable directional antenna and one omni-directional element array for the highest location accuracy of any BLE AP on the market. In addition, the BT11 has a dedicated radio for collecting data and sharing it with the Mist cloud for detailed location analytics and high accuracy indoor location services (down to one-meter accuracy with sub-second latency).
The funding was led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), with additional funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Cisco Investments. With the latest round of financing, Karim Faris, General Partner at GV, has joined Mist’s Board of Directors.
“The latest round of financing will help us further our goal of delivering amazing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth experiences to the billions of people using smartphones, tablets and laptops,” said Sujai Hajela, CEO and co-founder of Mist. “At the same time, we are committed to simplifying wireless operations and lowering IT costs by being the first vendor to bring big data and machine learning at web scale to wireless networking.”
“Mist is addressing two of the biggest issues in mobility today: reliable Wi-Fi that is easy to operate at web scale, and accurate Bluetooth location services that are seamless to deploy in any environment,” said GV General Partner Karim Faris. “Mist’s cloud-based platform uses advanced machine learning to deliver unprecedented automation and insight. This means that organizations like corporations, hotels, stores, hospitals, and universities can interact with their mobile users in exciting new ways.”