Wireless technology startup Tarana Wireless said it has raised $60 million from Khosla Ventures and EchoStar Corporation. This is in addition to financing of $28 million led by 1010 Holdings. With total financing of nearly $200 million, the company said it plans to grow from current 165 employee, by more than 35 employees by mid 2019, in a range of engineering, operations, and outbound positions.
The startup said that 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.
Tarana Wireless deals in radio technology with the promise to deliver immunity to obstructions, interference, changing conditions, and spectrum scarcity. Tarana's fixed wireless access technology aims to 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.
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.”
