On Tuesday, August 18th, Filament, an enterprise technology company, closed $5 million in funding led by Bullpen Capital, Verizon Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Samsung Ventures, and others.
Filament, an industrial network provider focused on Internet of Things applications aiming to create smart industrial infrastructure by connecting existing machinery and equipment to a wireless network secured by blockchain technology, closed $5 million of its Series A fund led by Bullpen Capital, Verizon Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Samsung Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Haystack, Working Lab Capital, Techstars.
As the industrial internet keeps growing, firms rely on machine-to-machine communications to collect data from physical objects. Filament is building new blockchain technologies that will permit to operate sensor networks in any environment.
Plus, with the company’s decentralized IoT stack, any device can discover, connect, interact, and transact value without central authority requirement.
“Filament provides a secure wireless foundation for the Industrial Internet,” said Eric Jennings to CoinSpeaker. “Our decentralized stack makes it easy to bring an existing infrastructure online, or generate recurring revenue by selling any physical device as a service,” he added.
Filament’s offering includes its authored distributed peer-to-peer protocol Telehash; a successor to XMPP instant messaging protocol, which more than 1 billion people use every day.
“With Filament’s technology stack, smart factories or smart cities can be enabled in a way the meets the needs of the market for a fraction of the traditional costs,” said Ed Ruth, Director at Verizon Ventures, to CoinSpeaker.
“As IoT and the power of embedded computers continue to proliferate beyond wearables and the home, we look forward to working with Filament to explore the full potential of blockchain technology and role it will play in device decentralization.”
“The Internet of Things could be one of the largest and most exciting verticals for blockchain technology in the coming years,” said Ryan Selkis, Director of Investments at Digital Currency Group.
“Rather than operating on expensive and siloed legacy infrastructure, we believe connected devices will only realize their full potential if they operate on a secure, distributed, and interoperable network like the blockchain’s. We are thrilled to invest in Filament and help the team implement their vision of decentralizing the Internet of Things,” he added.
According to the company’s press release, Filament’s platform is built on the blockchain (for transactions) by leveraging open protocols such as Telehash (private communication), JOSE (smart contracting), TMesh (mesh networking), and BitTorrent (over the air firmware and management updates).
By building a distributed platform on the blockchain, Filament devices are able to independently process payments and enforce smart contracts to ensure digital trust. These networks can also enable companies to capture raw economic value generated by sensors and actuators.
Among Filament’s most important benefits there are a secure storage and communication with dedicated cryptographic hardware, a surface-mount module called the Patch that can be embedded in custom hardware and connect over long distances (up to 10 miles) without existing WiFi, wired, or cellular connection, and the opportunity to create recurring revenue streams with physical devices, by authorizing access to the infrastructure and data over blockchain.
Eugenia graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University with a degree in Intercultural Communication, Translation/Interpretation (Italian, English). Currently she works as a business analyst, freelance interpreter and tutor. She’s fond of numismatics, photos, good books and sports, adores travelling and cooking.
