Tendril Gets Funding, Appoints CEO

Sept. 9, 2006
Tendril Networks (www.tendrilinc.com), a Boulder, Colo., provider of network operations platform software for wireless sensor and control networks, has secured $5.25 million in Series B funding, the company said.
In a separate announcement, Tendril also said that Adrian Tuck, a former executive at Boston-based Ember Corp., a supplier of wireless mesh networking chips and software, has joined Tendril as the company’s chief executive officer.The funding was led by Vista Ventures, a venture capital firm, also based in Boulder. Vista was joined in the funding by existing institutional investors Access Venture Partners, Appian Ventures and angel investors. “Vista embraced the opportunity to lead this investment round because Tendril is first to market with software that meets a critical need in the large and growing low-power wireless network market,” said Catharine Merigold, managing partner at Vista.‑Tendril’s distributed platform is designed to allow organizations to fully leverage the power of wireless sensor network and control implementations that integrate different types of low-power sensors/actuators with networked computing systems. Tendril’s technology accomplishes this by providing an integrated enterprise-side and node-side programming interface, along with associated network bridging software, for monitoring, managing, and integrating wireless sensor and control networks. The company says its approach allows original equipment manufacturers to integrate wireless networking capabilities into their products in less than a week, and provides system integrators with the ability to quickly add well-monitored wireless sensor and control networks to deployments in the field. Market objectives“With this funding, Tendril will aggressively pursue its sales and marketing objectives, which include expanding its customer base in key markets where wireless sensor and control network deployments are accelerating, such as the industrial control and building automation fields,” said Tim Enwall, founder, chairman and chief operating officer of Tendril. “Tendril’s software is critical to any deployment strategy for these networks, and this funding is a validation of the great traction Tendril has achieved in a short time.”Enwall has served as Tendril’s chief executive officer since the company was established in 2004, and assumes the position of chairman and COO with the appointment of new CEO Tuck. The appointment of Tuck comes at a key juncture for the company, as it turns the corner from early product development and customer validation to full-scale sales and marketing expansion due to the overall growth of the industry, the company said.“There is a sizable market opportunity for Tendril’s software because it addresses the most significant challenges of building and deploying low-power wireless sensor and control networks—including monitoring and managing network performance, diagnostics, security, power, network commissioning and upward integration,” said Tuck. “Tendril’s software is a first-of-its-kind solution for companies at the forefront of deploying these networks. This funding allows Tendril to translate its first-to-market position into a market leader position.”

Sponsored Recommendations

Why Go Beyond Traditional HMI/SCADA

Traditional HMI/SCADAs are being reinvented with today's growing dependence on mobile technology. Discover how AVEVA is implementing this software into your everyday devices to...

4 Reasons to move to a subscription model for your HMI/SCADA

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) gives you the technical and financial ability to respond to the changing market and provides efficient control across your entire enterprise—not just...

Is your HMI stuck in the stone age?

What happens when you adopt modern HMI solutions? Learn more about the future of operations control with these six modern HMI must-haves to help you turbocharge operator efficiency...

AVEVA™ System Platform: Smarter, Faster Operations for Enhanced Industrial Performance

AVEVA System Platform (formerly Wonderware) delivers a responsive, modern operations visualization framework designed to enhance performance across all devices with context-aware...