Feb. 3, 2005 — Dust Networks added $22 million to its coffers through a Series B round of financing that is expected to help it grow its customer base in key regions. The company, which specializes in wireless sensor networks, announced today that it completed a funding round led by Crescendo Ventures, with Cargill Ventures participating.
It also announced today that it was launching a program with federal and industrial partners to make commercial and residential buildings more energy efficient using its network systems.
Joy Weiss, Dust president and chief executive, and Rob Conant, vice president of business development, said the company would use the funding to build its sales and marketing programs and develop a broad base of customers. They added that Crescendo and Cargill, both with offices in Minneapolis, may help the California-based Dust reach target markets in the Midwest.
“For us, that’s really a big plus,” Weiss said. Dust already collaborates with Honeywell International on energy-monitoring networks for Supervalu grocery stores. Honeywell’s sensor group, as part of its automation and controls division, is in the Minneapolis region. Supervalu is based in Minneapolis.
Cargill Ventures, the business unit of an international corporation that specializes in food, agriculture and risk management products and services, should lead to opportunities for the 3-year-old startup as well. “Those are the kinds of applications we can enable,” Conant said. “We have a deep understanding of these kinds of applications — oil, gas, plants and fields.”
Existing investors Foundation Capital and Institutional Ventures Partners also participated in the funding round. The series B round brings Dust’s total funding to $30 million.
Dust also received a $1.5 million, 18-month award from the U.S. Department of Energy to create a wireless sensor network as part of an energy-savings initiative. Dust will partner with SVA Lighting USA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to build a lighting system that includes wireless controls. Their goal is to provide a sensor-based monitoring system that adjusts lighting based on occupancy. They hope to make the system affordable by eliminating the cost of wiring and labor.
Dust was launched in 2002 by Kris Pister, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the inventor of a technology known as Smart Dust. A leader in MEMS innovation, Pister develops wireless sensing networks that have been tested in environments as varied as university buildings and wildlife sanctuaries. His goal is to shrink the sensing components to the size of dust, allowing for ubiquitous and low-power monitoring networks.