pureLiFi Team (Photo: Business Wire)
EDINBURGH, Scotland — pureLiFi announced it has completed an $18M Series B fundraiser to provide LiFi technology to mass-market mobile device and lighting manufacturers. The funding round includes Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore, and the Scottish Investment Bank. The investment will allow the company to further develop Gigabit LiFi components and make them available in form factors ready for mobile device integration.
The firm announced its move from LiFi systems to components at Mobile World Congress in February where it demonstrated new Gigabit LiFi integrated into a laptop. Since its announcement, pureLiFi has been working with device manufacturers to have LiFi designed into commercial laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Recently, pureLiFi announced its collaboration with Getac, the leading manufacturer of rugged tablets and PCs. It has also worked with leading companies across several industries, such as telecommunications company O2 Telefonica, and lighting companies Zumtobel and Wipro.
“Device manufacturers are looking for new ways to provide devices with faster, more reliable and secure connectivity. LiFi is the natural next step in the evolution of global wireless communications and pureLiFi is leading the way to provide this technology to the market,” says pureLiFi CEO Alistair Banham. “Our investors believe in our team and our strategy to provide LiFi for every light and every device, and we have the products to support mobile device integration of LiFi.”
LiFi enables the transfer of the internet through light without the use of radio frequencies used by other technologies such as wi-fi and cellular. By using the light, spectrum LiFi can unleash faster, more reliable and more secure wireless data communication. Professor Harald Haas, co-founder and CSO of pureLiFi stated: “After more than a decade of persistent and systematic development of key technologies for wireless communications using light and the demonstration of the almost unlimited capabilities of LiFi for secure gigabit wireless connectivity for many use cases such as machine-to-machine communication, we are now at the precipice of a watershed moment for LiFi. I am absolutely delighted that we are now empowered to get the LiFi mass-market avalanche in motion!”
LiFi has increasingly gathered industry support as the market has identified the technology’s advantages. Currently, the technology is being globally standardized under 802.11, which is on schedule to be fully ratified in early 2021. In June of this year, a global Light Communications Alliance (LCA) was formed to develop new use cases, educate the market, and advocate the use of standards for this emerging industry. The organization was founded by leading industry brands such as Nokia and Liberty Global, along with LiFi providers, including pureLiFi.
Global Market Insights projects the LiFi Market will reach $75 Billion by 2023. Demand for wireless connectivity is growing exponentially due to the fast growth in smart living, massive IoT, VR/AR, and autonomous systems. LiFi can serve as the largest pipe for data providing 1000 times the bandwidth of the entire radio spectrum. This latest investment will allow pureLiFi to not only take advantage of this massive market opportunity but lead the advancement of LiFi chipsets for consumer devices, bringing the technology ever closer to the hands of everyone.
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