As we built our first version of the then spelled NeuAer Proximity Platform in 2010, we knew that we were onto something. We became the forerunner of the next generation of location-based services. Creating a technology that would work both indoors and out, as a licensable engine to allow other developers to leverage what were formerly “stray” or ambient radio signals.
When we won Best Technology at Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH competition in 2011, the tech community told us that we had a hit on our hands. Investors swooned and before we knew it, unsolicited term sheets for convertible notes were arriving in our in-box.
As a bootstrapped company, accepting early money from outside investors would have removed some of the fundraising pressure and provided breathing room to grow faster. However, we respectfully declined each offer and decided to grow with customers, albeit slowly, while looking for the right strategic investors.
We are happy to write that our first commercial license came in 2011 and we closed an investment round in 2012 with huge companies considered to be the right strategic matches, that could leverage our vision within their own products or services.
First to the boardroom table in our series seed (which is investor speak for pre-series A) was Intel Capital, the investment arm of the Intel processor empire. With their investment we are bringing our engine into more than just smartphones by building next generation collaboration platforms for laptops and mobile devices.
Rounding out the investment was T-Venture, the investment arm of Deutsche Telekom, which is the German based giant behind the T-Mobile carrier group worldwide. Watch for future news from their business units on these blog pages.
As for 2013, we are off to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, known by many of us as a gadget heaven, to demonstrate integration that we have been working on all summer. With phone networks moving to 4G or LTE today, the next generation of voice & video calls will be made on VoLTE (Voice over LTE networks.) Our technology taps into this next generation carrier infrastructure of Alcatel-Lucent via their IMS platform and its API capabilities. This collaboration came into place as a member of their “ng Connect” program. We will be demoing in their booth in the South Hall #31412. Look for us in the inner ring of the Alcatel-Lucent partners if you are there!
Finally, we are going back to our competition roots, sponsoring the hack-a-thon of the same conference where we debuted, LAUNCH on March 2nd in San Francisco. This is where we will launch our SDK that goes inside of YOUR applications, or devices, debut our second-generation API “action engine” in the cloud and a few other tricks that we have been working ourselves. Best thing for you developers out there, is that we are giving away a $2,000 prize to the team who builds our favorite application on the NewAer platform.
What a fast few years it has been. We are excited to have our partners, customers and new investors in the now easy to pronounce NewAer, Inc. and are off to the races. If you are in the industry, come say hello to us in Vegas at CES or Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. We can give the run-down on why proximity beats location-based services in power consumption and speed for your own applications, devices or services. Happy New Year, everyone, and developers, we will see you at LAUNCH!
