Blecon Shows Bluetooth Means Business
$4.6M ((£3.5 million) Seed Fuels No-Pairing Bluetooth Cloud Connectivity
London, UK – October 8, 2024 – Blecon today announced a $4.6M (£3.5 million) seed funding round, advancing its mission to unlock the full potential of Bluetooth Low Energy for IoT Connectivity.
“Bluetooth has seen unprecedented technical and commercial success as a consumer technology for personal connectivity, with adoption in billions of devices. Now, businesses are exploiting those economies of scale and unique low-cost, low-power characteristics for cloud-connected devices, and Blecon is providing the technology to allow them to achieve it.”
Simon Ford, CEO of Blecon
Founded by seasoned IoT experts from ARM, AWS, and Microsoft, Blecon has developed a solution that unlocks Bluetooth’s potential for commercial IoT deployments. Eliminating the need for 1:1 pairing and enabling both existing smartphones and dedicated cellular hubs to act as hotspots, Blecon leverages the inherent benefits of Bluetooth combined with the deployment model of Wi-Fi and the network model of Cellular.
“At Wiliot, we’re embedding Bluetooth into our IoT Pixels, stickers that bring real-time intelligence to everyday items—from supply chains to healthcare—in ways that were previously impossible. Bluetooth is no longer confined to consumer devices; it’s now driving commercial cloud applications, and companies like Blecon are accelerating this shift.”
Steve Statler, CMO at Wiliot
The funding, led by MMC Ventures, enables Blecon to further strengthen product development and expand customer engagements.
“At MMC we take a research-led approach to the companies and technologies that will reshape our economy over the coming decades. Blecon’s infrastructure proposition has the potential to leverage all the investment already made in tried and tested Bluetooth technology and unlock that for new data-driven product companies and applications.”
Bruce Macfarlane, founding partner of MMC Ventures
Key features of Blecon technology include:
- No Pairing: Blecon-enabled Bluetooth devices can securely and automatically connect to the cloud without the need for traditional Bluetooth pairing.
- Cellular-Like Network: Devices can route data bi-directionally through any available Blecon hotspots, enabling cellular-like roaming.
- Plug & Play: Blecon Apps enable phones and laptops as Hotspots, with Blecon Hubs for dedicated coverage; all without configuration.
- Global Reach: Leverage Bluetooth’s universal recognition and adoption for worldwide IoT development and deployment.
For more information, visit https://blecon.net
About Blecon
Blecon enables physical products to communicate with cloud applications using Bluetooth Low Energy. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Blecon combines the inherent benefits of Bluetooth with the deployment model of Wi-Fi and the network model of Cellular to achieve low-cost and low-power IoT connectivity. With its flexible architecture and ease of integration, Blecon democratises access to Bluetooth IoT connectivity.
