IoT startup Losant secures $5.2M from CincyTech, AOL Co-Founder and others

Cincinnati-based IoT startup Losant closes its Series A round of funding at $5.2 million with big name backers such as AOL Co-Founder Steve Case’s Revolution firm and CincyTech.

TechNexus and Vine Street Ventures also made strong investments into Losant, a company that collects, visualizes, and monitors IoT data and build powerful business logic with an intuitive real-time workflow engine.

Charlie Key

“We’re excited to see our platform power intelligent solutions across a gamut of industries and use-cases. Our customers are pushing new boundaries in industrial equipment monitoring, asset tracking, smart buildings, and more. With endless possibilities, Losant is uniquely positioned to help thousands of companies in their IoT journey,” said Charlie Key, CEO of Losant.

With digital information transforming every business and industry, Losant helps companies– including Verizon, Bosch, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise– build connected solutions that allow leaders to make decisions based on meaningful, real-time data.

The investment is one of the first from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest® Seed fund, a $150-million fund, led by AOL Co-Founder Steve Case and JD Vance, to make early stage investments in startups outside of Silicon Valley. The Rise of the Rest Seed fund is backed by a group of iconic entrepreneurs, executives and investors.

JD Vance

“Losant’s use of next generation IoT solutions has the potential to change every industry and business and the fact that it’s a promising Ohio-grown startup makes it that much more exciting. We are thrilled to invest in Losant alongside CincyTech, who has been helping entrepreneurs build successful technology companies in southwest Ohio for a decade,” said Vance.

CincyTech CEO Mike Venerable added, “Connected experiences are going to transform business and personal experiences for all of us in the next decade.”

“Billions, not millions, of connected devices are being deployed across all domains. Losant’s reliable and scalable platform for IoT is being used in an accelerating number of scenarios that represent the connected future,” said Venerable.

Mike Venerable

CincyTech is a public-private seed-stage investor whose mission is to be a trusted partner in helping to transform ideas into high potential technology companies in Southwest Ohio.

Losan prides itself as being based in the Midwest and Cincinnati in particular on its website stating:

Cincinnati is a growing Midwestern city and the place that we’re proud to call home. Cincinnati is home to nine Fortune 500 companies and two Fortune 100 companies focusing on industries like consumer products, machine tools, electronics and aviation equipment. Cincinnati was recently ranked #5 for tech startups. That entrepreneurial, innovative spirit is encoded into our DNA.

Timothy Hinchliffe: Tim was born in Wisconsin and raised on both coasts of the US. He is a journalist, editor, and regular contributor on the tech scene. Previously, he was a reporter for The Ghanaian Chronicle in West Africa, and Colombia Reports in South America.