Cisco IoT fixer Davra launches UK push after funding boost
Irish Internet of Things start-up firm Davra hopes to convert US success into the UK after €2.5m government-led funding
Davra Networks, an Internet of Things (IoT) platform used by vendors including Cisco in their IoT offerings, is turning its focus on the UK market, after securing a €2.5m (£1.96m) funding pot.
Davra, founded in 2011, acts as a middle man between vendors and VARs for IoT projects, and has partnered with Cisco on a number of different projects, including managing data from a school bus fleet in Texas with the reseller Presidio.
The Irish-headquartered company has previously been focusing on projects in the US market and has an office in California, but it has now set its sights on the UK, and expects to open a London office next year.
The funding Davra has received has principally come from Enterprise Ireland, an Irish government organisation that funds home-grown businesses.
In June, Davra unveiled the cloud-based platform RuBAN, which takes the raw data being generated by a growing group of connected "things", such as a car or an oil rig, and presenting it as something that is easy to consume for system integrators, who can then relay the data back to customers.
According to Paul Glynn (pictured above), Davra's chief executive, RuBAN was built from the ground up with networking VARs and systems integrators in mind.
An example of a project which Davra is working on in the UK is in cinema ticket machines, where it is running a field trial for connecting the machines over a wireless network and then pulling the data back to notify the customer when a machine is broken so they can send someone to fix it.
Glynn said that although the project is "very simple and easy", customers can receive "a return on investment that is very high" because of the reduction in man hours needed to fix the machines.
Another project Davra is testing in the UK is with a bus company that allows you to tap on and off the bus via a chip in your debit card, replacing the current ticket system. To do this the vehicle is connected to the network and Davra manages that connectivity and the ticketing system.
Davra then uses the data created by the connected bus to offer services to the bus company such as driver behaviour management systems, vehicle tracking solutions and geo-aware advertising.
Glynn said that although its launch in the UK has only happened in the past few months, it is already working and speaking with a number of VARs, such as BT, Dimension Data and SCC.
Glynn said what separates Davra from its competitors is its understanding of local intelligence and how it differentiates what is and what is not relevant in this data.
Davra is also launching a recruitment drive, and looking to add five new people in the UK to its global team of 18, according to Glynn (pictured right).