Guess Who’s Buying Dinner Tonight?!? Zonoff Just Raised $32M!

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal

Zonoff raises $31.8M Series B round

Zonoff announced Wednesday that it raised $31.8 million in Series B funding.

The Malvern, Pa.-based company develops software that can be used to control thermostats and security cameras in homes from a wide variety of devices. Last November, Zonoff entered into an agreement with Staples to provide the software platform that powers Staples Connect, a home automation solution found in hundreds of Staples retail stores today.

The company said the funding round was a “mixture of strategic and venture investment,” including investors Grotech Ventures and Valhalla Partners, both of Vienna, Va.

The new money will be used to fund additional growth, “both in terms of staff and space, as well as market expansion via our channel partners,” Zonoff spokesman Bob Cooper said.

Zonoff raised its Series A round — totaling $3.8 million — in April of last year. The two Virginia investors led that round, too. Prior to that, Zonoff had received seed funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA.

Interestingly, the company doesn’t sell its software to consumers. The customers for its Connected Home Platform are mostly retailers that sell — and manufacturers that make — the equipment its software controls.

Kiran Hebbar, a general partner of Valhalla, described Zonoff as “the only platform provider that is not also in the hardware business.” It’s something Hebbar said is a “very valuable position…as it does not compete with various partners that either make or sell connected devices.”

Zonoff’s technology was developed originally by BuLogics. The technology was spun out of BuLogics into Zonoff in 2010. (BuLogics also has spun out StratIS EMS, which the Philadelphia Business Journal profiled in October.)

Zonoff has 45 full-time staffers, and plans to double in size within the next 12 months, Cooper said. The company’s primary office is, and will remain, in Malvern, but it also has full-time personnel in Silicon Valley and outside Frankfurt, Germany, Cooper said.

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