Tarana Wireless Inc. today announced a $60 million financing with Khosla Ventures and EchoStar Corporation, as a follow-on to financing of $28m led by 1010 Holdings, LLC, the family offices of Greg Wyler. In conjunction with the financing, EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen, Khosla Ventures partner Samir Kaul, and Greg Wyler, Chairman of OneWeb, have joined Tarana’s board of directors. Kranti Kilaru recently stepped down from his role as EVP at EchoStar to join Tarana’s leadership team as President.
With total financing of nearly $200 million, Tarana has created a new class of radio technology with unprecedented immunity to obstructions, interference, changing conditions, and spectrum scarcity. Tarana’s fixed wireless access technology will drive a tenfold improvement in the network economics of gigabit broadband access at massive scale.
Company founder and COO Sergiu Nedevschi stated, “We are excited to complete this round of financing, which allows us to finish our product development efforts and start commercial trials with a number of tier 1 operators who are now making plans for that phase.”
Samir Kaul said, “We’ve evaluated many companies who have tried to solve the world’s broadband problem with fixed wireless. We believe Tarana is the only one that has developed the technology required to consistently deliver the affordable gigabit bandwidth that both consumers and businesses worldwide are demanding.”
Greg Wyler added, “Tarana has the lowest-cost and highest-capacity solution for suburban residential users everywhere, whether that is the US, Europe, Africa, South America, or Asia. Tarana’s access network enables mobile operators and ISPs to leapfrog fiber to the home and quickly provide equivalent performance at a fraction of the cost. This is a great complement to OneWeb’s rural capabilities and fits perfectly with the mission to bridge the digital divide.”
Kranti Kilaru comes to Tarana after nearly 30 years in the EchoStar organization, where he led several initiatives critical to the company’s growth and success, including development of key elements of DISH Network, management of the world’s most extensive content broadcast system, and most recently leadership of the architectural and operational evolution of the Sling TV streaming platform into a world-class, truly scalable offering. Mr. Kilaru said, “Tarana’s national-scale tier-1 service provider engagements on multiple continents will demand careful attention to very high-volume and flawless business execution on top of their unrivaled technology foundation. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to leverage my experience at EchoStar in providing guidance to the Tarana team.”
Tarana plans to grow its organization, currently 165 strong, by more than 35 employees by mid 2019, in a range of engineering, operations, and outbound positions. Candidates interested in helping make the world a better-connected place with the industry’s leader in broadband technology innovation are invited to visit www.taranawireless.com/careers to explore opportunities.
About Tarana
Tarana Wireless, Inc. is the performance leader in fixed wireless access network solutions, powered by a number of industry-first and well-proven innovations in perfect, multidimensional optimization of radio signals. Its Gigabit 1 fixed access system overcomes previously insurmountable network economics challenges for service providers in mainstream broadband markets, using free unlicensed spectrum. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has additional staff in Pune, India. Prior funding rounds have included participation from AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and a number of global private investors. Please visit https://www.taranawireless.com for more information.
About Khosla Ventures
Khosla Ventures is a venture capitalist firm that provides venture assistance and strategic advice to entrepreneurs working on breakthrough technologies. The firm was founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. The firm focuses on transformative technology in consumer, enterprise, education, advertising, financial services, semiconductors, health, big data, agriculture/food, sustainable energy and robotics. Khosla Ventures is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. For more information about the firm's activities, please visit https://www.khoslaventures.com.
About EchoStar
EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS) is a premier global provider of satellite communication solutions. Headquartered in Englewood, Colo., and conducting business around the globe, EchoStar is a pioneer in secure communications technologies through its Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Satellite Services business segments. For more information, visit www.echostar.com. Follow @EchoStar on Twitter.
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Contacts:
Steven Glapa, VP of Marketing
+1-408-351-4085
pr@taranawireless.com
