Watch Now


Enterprise IoT leader Samsara raises $50M to invest in growth

(Photo: Shutterstock)

Samsara, the leader in enterprise IoT systems, today announced $50 million in growth capital from investors Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. The new funding comes as Samsara’s transportation business adds over 1,700 new customers each quarter and positions the company to rapidly scale support and customer enablement while investing in new technology innovation for its users.

Samsara offers its transportation customers a complete data platform for their operations, combining real-time GPS tracking, wireless sensors, video, and mobile applications with intuitive software that improves the efficiency of customers’ operations. With the new funding, Samsara will scale customer support and enablement to serve thousands of new customers, and will expand its platform with new sensors, software, and AI-driven data analytics to bring new business value to its users. The company plans to grow from 300 employees to over 550 by year-end and will more than double its California-based engineering and customer support teams.

“Samsara is onboarding thousands of new customers each quarter as organizations increasingly adopt IoT in their fleets,” said Sanjit Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Samsara. “We’ve received an enormous volume of product ideas and feedback from our users, and over the past six months we’ve launched three new product families and dozens of software features. The business impact that our customers report – from lower operating costs to increased safety and customer service – has been resounding. This new funding will allow us to accelerate our pace of innovation even further, and to scale our organization to support even more new customers.”

Samsara’s customer-focused product development has translated to explosive growth in the market – with sales growing over 250% annually – creating a large and fast-growing base for the company’s new technologies. New customers are joining the company from across a range of industries, including:

●      Food and Beverage distributors monitoring food safety during transit with wireless temperature and cargo sensors

●      Trucking companies reducing distracted driving and increasing driver safety with gamification and in-cab cameras

●      Construction firms optimizing inventories of generators and heavy equipment

●      School districts helping parents locate lost children by tracking bus passengers in real time

●      Cities helping residents navigate winter storms by publishing live snowplow paths

“Samsara is continually focused on improving the product,” said Bill Carragher, CEO of Local Motion, a Boston-based passenger transit company. “Their platform has already made an impact by improving the safety and efficiency of our operations. But we chose it because we knew it would grow to meet our needs.”

The new funding builds on Samsara’s already-strong financial position, providing the company with more than $100 million of cash on hand to make long-term product investments and provide support to its rapidly growing customer base. The new investment brings Samsara’s total capital raised to $130 million and values the company at $1.4 billion.

“Our customers value innovation, but also want a stable partner who will support them over the long term,” said Kiren Sekar, VP of Product Management at Samsara. “This new funding enables us to bring cutting-edge technologies to our users while ensuring that we have the financial security to grow with our customers for years to come.”

Stay up-to-date with the latest commentary and insights on FreightTech and the impact to the markets by subscribing.