Wyebot has raised $2.5 million through Series-Seed funding, and announced broad availability of its sensor-based Wi-Fi assurance platform for enterprise and educational facilities.
Innospark Ventures and Tectonic Ventures led the funding round, which is enabling Wyebot to scale its go-to-market team and expand machine learning activities.
The company’s vendor agnostic Wireless Intelligence Platform (WIP) can be up and running in about five minutes, according to a spokesperson, and uses AI-powered algorithms and sensors to prevent and help fix Wi-Fi network issues, both before and as they happen.
“Even though Wi-Fi is seemingly everywhere today, the necessary expertise and skillset to properly manage wireless networks is not as omnipresent,” said Venkat Srinivasan, managing director and founder of Innospark Ventures, in a statement. That’s why we’re so excited about Wyebot and its WIP – the AI capabilities and plug-and-play ease of use make it the ideal solution for any organization seeking WiFi assurance.”
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Wyebot’s on-premise sensor hardware collects RF data, both Wi-Fi and non-Wi-Fi, using four Wi-Fi radios. Sensors then send metadata to a cloud platform where WIP’s AI engine employs predictive analytics to detect problems and automatically recommend solutions to help keep Wi-Fi networks up and running. Each sensor covers 10,000 square feet.
According to Wyebot, WIP reduces mean time to resolution by up to 90%, decreases Wi-Fi problem tickets by 50%, and reduces remote site visits by 80%, according to Wyebot.
In enterprise networks, the platform provides visibility and optimization in environments where networks can get stressed by an increasing number of devices, including personal handsets and watches and facility devices like printers and smart thermostats and lighting. Wyebot also stressed the benefits of the WIP platform in distributed environments, as more companies have employees who work remotely.
“Today’s business need for constant connectivity has created a burden on IT departments to keep an entire organization connected – especially difficult with the proliferation of distributed enterprises and campuses,” said Roger Sands, CEO, Wyebot, in a statement. “Organizations can’t afford the lost productivity that occurs when their WiFi isn’t working or they are unable to access critical applications and information in the cloud. Our patent-pending AI-powered engine automatically identifies performance issues and recommends solutions both reactively, when the issues are occurring, and proactively before they impact users, ensuring maximum performance across the network.
Wyebot is also targeting educational facilities, where it said IT issues can ramp up if resources fail to keep pace with increasing load and demands on the wireless network from things like e-learning and 1:1 computing.
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The WIP platform works alongside all Wi-Fi access points and IoT sensors and aims to enhance analytics by taking a holistic look at the Wi-Fi spectrum. It can also act as a Wi-Fi client device and run several synthetic network tests on both wired and wireless LAN.
Typical issues enterprises may run into that WIP can address include, AP misconfigurations, security flaws, excessive multicast/broadcast, client distribution and connectivity issues, and non-Wi-Fi interference, according to Wyebot.
Wyebot said WIP is already providing Wi-Fi optimization to more than 10 million client devices across the U.S.