A startup specializing in connecting cars to the internet is filling up its tank with more capital.
Vancouver-founded Mojio announced Tuesday (February 20) the closing of a Series B funding round, drawing US$40 million from investors.
Toronto-based Kensington Capital led the funding round, which also included investments from Assurant, Bosch, Iris Capital, Telus Venture, T-Mobile and Trend Forward Capital.
Additional investment also came from Series A investors such as Amazon Alexa Fund, BDC IT Venture Fund, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and Relay Ventures.
Mojio originally announced the Series B funding round in December 2017, drawing C$30 million at the time.
About a year earlier Mojio became the first company to receive funding from the taxpayer-backed B.C. Tech Fund.
The $100-million fund of funds is also managed by Kensington Capital.
And while the B.C. Tech Fund is a fund of funds, the province has designated $25 million for Kensington to make direct investments into startups.
Kensington managing partner Rick Nathan told BIV in 2016 the B.C. Tech Fund’s direct investment in Mojio was in the $1-3-million range.
The company has worked with hardware partners to develop a device that plugs into a car’s onboard diagnostic port and sends encrypted data to Mojio’s cloud over 4G LTE.
A car that previously had no internet connectivity is instantly online.
Mojio has partnered with telecom carriers across the globe, including T-Mobile in the U.S., Deutsche Telekom in Europe, and Telus Corp. (TSX: T), Rogers (TSX: RCI.B) and Bell (TSX: BCE) in Canada.
