MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mist today emerged from stealth and revealed patented technology that lets businesses deliver new, engaging mobile experiences for their employees and customers. The company is led by Cisco veterans and backed by Norwest Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners with $14.4 million in Series A funding. Mist technology is currently in commercial pilots with some of the world’s largest organizations in retail, healthcare, hospitality, technology, higher education and more, as well as leading managed service providers.
Mist has developed a fundamentally new approach, born in the mobile and cloud era, to delivering wireless including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). A Mist wireless network understands and adapts to each user, how they are moving, the devices they are carrying and the content they are consuming at a scale never before possible.
As businesses strive to differentiate based on the customer experience, they need new ways to engage consumers, visitors, and users of their space. With more than seven billion mobile devices in use globallyi, and our growing expectation of ever-present connectivity, mobile devices present an important opportunity to link the physical and digital worlds.
However, today’s networks are not equipped to deliver the next generation of mobile experiences. The wireless network technology in use today was designed in the laptop era, before the smartphone existed. It is rigid, static, unintelligent and manual. This means IT is stuck maintaining wireless networks that cannot keep up with the pace of change in mobility and are not prepared for the sheer volume of devices that will need connectivity tomorrow. In addition, the cost to roll out and maintain location deployments that rely on BLE hardware has slowed ROI and held back mainstream adoption.
Mist is the first to apply a micro-services architecture and machine learning to the wireless mobile experience, which makes fixes exponentially faster - bringing the agility of SaaS to networking - and allows real time analysis at a scale not possible today.
Gartner recognized Mist as a Cool Vendor in the report, Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2016. This year's Cool Vendors research highlights products and services that firmly integrate mobility into digital business strategies in capabilities and location services.ii,iii
The company, founded in 2014, is led by wireless industry veterans CEO Sujai Hajela and CTO Bob Friday, who successfully grew Cisco’s Wireless Business Unit to a multi-billion dollar business. Friday founded Airespace, the wireless LAN company Cisco acquired in 2005 for $450 million.
“We want to help our customers exceed the expectations of the mobile generation,” said Mist Co-founder and CEO Sujai Hajela. “As the role of the CIO evolves to Chief Experience Officer, the network becomes a business asset and not just an IT asset, delivering an experience beyond just connectivity. Mist is driving the transition from the connectivity era to the experience era.”
Supporting quotes
“100% uptime? CIOs need to be thinking bigger than that. What services are your staff, your customers, your clients dreaming about? How can you deliver the next generation of solutions today, delighting them in the process? And yes, a network that will be the foundation for next generation wireless IoT, augmented reality and analytics. Mist understands that the network is a strategic business asset.” – Mitch Davis, SVP/CIO, Bowdoin College
"Mist's founding team shaped the wireless industry as we know it today. They have developed a truly differentiated product offering that addresses the industry's most challenging pain points. We're excited to back this team of serial entrepreneurs who are poised to disrupt again. Mist is addressing the widespread issue of unreliable and outdated wireless technology in a world where mobile connectivity is paramount. Through a unique approach of applying micro-services architecture and machine learning to wireless networking, Mist enables businesses to deliver high-quality and personalized mobile experiences."– Matt Howard, Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
“Exponential growth of mobile users, IoT and cloud applications, along with the need to engage with consumers and visitors in their venue, means existing wireless technology infrastructure is at best outdated, and soon to be obsolete. Sujai, Bob and their team are bringing a formidable mix of business chops, technical acumen and deep knowledge of customer needs to bear to attack this problem.” – Arif Janmohamed, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
About Mist
Mist is a Silicon Valley based startup rethinking the future of indoor mobile services. Founded by Cisco veterans Sujai Hajela, CEO; Bob Friday, CTO; and Brett Galloway, Chairman, and backed by Norwest Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mist has brought wireless networking technology into the experience era by using machine learning and micro-services architecture to deliver amazing mobile experiences at scale.
Mist technology is currently in commercial pilots with some of the world’s largest organizations in sectors including retail, healthcare, hospitality, technology, higher education and more, as well as leading managed service providers. For more information, visit www.mist.com and follow @MistSystems.
i Cisco Visual Networking Index 2016: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/index.html
ii Gartner, “Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2016,” by Leif-Olof Wallin, Nick Jones, Katja Ruud, Vishal Tripathi, Tim Zimmerman and Mike Gotta, April 20, 2016.
iii Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
