Dejero Labs Inc., an investee company of BEST Funds and Wellington Financial, has raised $32 million in growth equity financing from Kayne Partners and Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I).
Waterloo, Ontario based Dejero raised $14 million in venture debt financing from Wellington Financial in February 2017 and $4.5 million from BEST Funds in May 2014.
Dejero is an innovator in blending IP networks for video transport and Internet connectivity while mobile or in remote locations.
Dejero’s solutions provide reliable connectivity by blending cellular, satellite and other IP connections from multiple network providers to deliver the bandwidth required to exchange high throughput, low latency video and data. Its cloud-managed solutions are used by news organizations to report live from around the world, and to provide Internet connectivity in remote locations or while mobile.
New funding will be used largely to fund development and commercialization of Dejero’s blended connectivity solutions into new markets.
Kayne Partners is the growth private equity arm of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP, an investment firm managing approximately US $25 billion in assets.
Intelsat is already a collaborating partner in the Dejero CellSat solution, which intelligently combines cellular connectivity from multiple mobile network providers with Ku-band IP satellite connectivity.
“We are impressed with Dejero’s rapid growth and worldwide success, which are clearly driven by its unique network blending technology that solves connectivity challenges in portable, in-vehicle and fixed location scenarios,” said Leon Chen, Managing Director at Kayne Partners. “This investment will allow Dejero to bring its innovative thinking more quickly to market and further extend its position as market leader.” As part of this financing round, Leon and Rob Shilton, also of Kayne Partners, will be joining the Dejero board of directors.
Also joining the board is Michael DeMarco, Intelsat’s Executive Vice President of Operations, who commented: “following the success of our recent partnership that brought the Dejero CellSat solution to market, we’ve made a strategic investment that will accelerate our collaboration on additional multi-network connectivity solutions for our customers.”
Bruce Anderson, CEO of Dejero, explained “Simple, fast, cost-effective and highly reliable connectivity is vital in today’s interconnected world, and is becoming ever more so through natural progressions such as connected vehicles and the internet of things. With this funding we see huge opportunities to deliver a broader range of blended connectivity solutions and services, not only to our traditional market of broadcast and media, but to other markets where reliable, flexible connectivity is just as vital. “Our existing collaboration with Intelsat is greatly enhanced by this investment, which we value as an endorsement of our skills in innovation and delivery,” Anderson added. “Kayne brings to the table a new set of insights and connections which will also drive strong growth.”
photo credit: Dejero