Rimot, a Dartmouth company whose technology monitors remote infrastructure, has closed an equity financing round of $1.2 million, which it will use to help accelerate sales in Canada and the U.S.
The company issued a press release Wednesday saying it has received $700,000 from angel investors (including some it met through the Creative Destruction Lab-Atlantic) and $500,000 from Innovacorp.
“This investment will allow Rimot to accelerate our growth at a much faster pace to meet the needs of our customers in the United States and Canada,” said Rimot CEO Andrew Boswell in the statement. “Innovacorp has been a great partner in helping us grow our business, and the private investment we received exceeded our targets by the exposure we received from the Creative Destruction Lab program.”
The announcement comes two weeks after Rimot announced it had borrowed $600,000 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, meaning it has recently added $1.8 million in capital to its balance sheet.
Boswell and Rimot CTO James Craig formed Rimot to address the problems that various companies or organizations have in monitoring their private wireless communications systems in remote locations. These systems are susceptible to outages, and repairing them is often costly because they are so far from corporate or government offices.
They devised a solution called RimotRF, which they describe as a turnkey solution, meaning that it can bolt on to any remote transmitter and work seamlessly with existing communications equipment. RimotRF constantly collects information about the transmitter and site, combining it with weather data to give a complete picture of what is happening in the field.
The company’s first service is for monitoring of wireless communication sites. A recent Motorola Solutions global benchmark study found that wireless systems that are continuously monitored 24 hours a day experience 50 percent fewer outages than sites that are unmonitored.
The company statement said the remote asset management market is undergoing 25 percent per year growth and MarketsandMarkets, a B2B research company, estimates it will reach US$27 billion globally in 2021.
In an interview two weeks ago, Boswell said Rimot is establishing more contracts and partnerships. For example, he said it is working with Motorola Solutions, and has secured a standing offer with the U.S. government and is working with a partner to secure its first government contract in the U.S.
Boswell said the company will likely raise money again in 2020.
Disclosure: Innovacorp and ACOA are clients of Entrevestor.
