London-based IoT startup floLIVE closes $21.5 million Series B funding to expand its global footprint

floLIVE, a London, England-based startup that offers cloud-native global Connectivity Management Solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), announced a $21.5 million financing round to increase its presence in Europe, Asia and North America as well as accelerate its market awareness programs. The round was led by 83North, and included notable Venture Capitals: Dell Technologies Capital, Saban Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures LLC. In conjunction with the funding, FloLive also announced the the appointment of Nir Shalom as the company’s new CEO.

Founded in 2015 by Percy Grundy, floLIVE offers a complete, cloud-based IoT eco-system that includes a core network with integrated device management, Inventory and Billing services – enabling its customers to manage their devices via its Live Mobile Device Platform.

floLIVE’s Connectivity Management Platform is a unique blend of globally distributed core networks, centrally controlled and managed over the cloud. This layout allows its customers to benefit from local connectivity in its ever-growing geographic footprint while complying with emerging regulations and ensuring high performance, low latency and improved coverage.

As part of this round, floLIVE has announced the appointment of Nir Shalom as its new CEO. “After a comprehensive search process, we are pleased to have found an outstanding individual to assume leadership of our young company and turn it into the leading provider of Global Connectivity Management Services.” Said Boaz Goldman, Chairman of floLIVE. “Nir brings extensive experience in leadership and management of technology companies and has intimate knowledge of the telecom industry”

Prior to joining floLIVE, Nir served as General Manager of AT&T Israel and Vice President of Network Application Development of AT&T. He had previously led the EMEA operations for Interwise – a global provider of Voice, Video and Web Conferencing solutions over IP.

“We are witnessing a growing demand for seamless, global and secure connectivity services among enterprises and are in a great position to serve this market with our advanced platform and deep market understanding”, said Nir. “Many solutions in the market provide some of the required elements, but no single vendor offers a holistic service like ours.”

Enterprises are moving from product sales to service sales, as part of their strategy to promote services that will ensure recurring revenues and obtain better customer stickiness; to enable this evolution, they must assure their devices are always connected, secure and compliant with local regulations in each country.

floLIVE’s platform was primarily built to address the needs of modern enterprises by providing Global, Secure, Regulatory-compliant connectivity that offers “zero-touch” operation with unified management and control, regardless the device’s country or network operator.

“We have great faith in the floLIVE team and are confident in their ability to be a leading provider of global connectivity solutions as-a-service”, said Yoram Snir, Partner at 83North. “floLIVE’s rich technology stack and overlying solutions have been field-proven for the last decade and are well positioned to serve the stringent demands of the IoT connectivity market.”