The Balena team on a recent trip to Barcelona. (Balena Photo)

As more companies deploy fleets of IoT devices, Seattle startup Balena is helping them manage their edge computing needs.

The company today announced a $14.4 million investment round to support its growth. OpenView led the Series B round, with participation from existing investors including Threshold Ventures, Aspect Ventures, and GE Ventures.

Founded in 2013 and formerly known as Resin.io, Balena provides container-based infrastructure to help customers build, deploy, and update IoT applications for devices on the “edge.” It has a few hundred customers that span across industries such as farming, energy, medicine, real estate, robotics, and more. For example, hospitality company Sonder uses Balena to control keyless entry, thermostats, and lighting tech in its rooms.

The number of IoT devices on Balena’s platform is growing nearly 4X year-over-year.

“We believe that edge computing is the next major computing paradigm, and it needs a scalable development platform to match. We’re building that platform and making the edge accessible to mainstream developers,” Balena CEO Alexandros Marinos said in a statement.

The global edge computing market is expected to reach $16.5 billion by 2025, according to Allied Market Research.

Balena employs 65 people and plans to double its workforce over the next 12-to-18 months. The company relocated to Seattle from London in 2015; it still has an offices in London, as well as remote outposts in Athens and Milan. Balena’s last investment came in June 2018 from Soracom, a division of Japanese wireless carrier KDDI Corp. Total funding to date is $31 million. Previous investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, GE, and Ericsson.

Other OpenView portfolio companies in the Seattle area include Highspot, Zipwhip, and Skytap.

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