Tarana Raises $50M to Sustain Rapid Growth

Round led by digital infrastructure innovation investor Digital Alpha

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tarana Wireless, Inc. announced today that Digital Alpha Advisors, an investment firm focused on digital infrastructure, has joined the company’s investor group. The $50M up round led by Digital Alpha is focused on both accelerating Tarana’s rapid growth in sales and deployment of G1, its next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) platform, as well as expanding R&D investment to build on the company’s foundational advances in wireless broadband technology. Tarana’s valuation increase reflects the company’s strong performance and market traction.

Digital Alpha’s interest in Tarana stems from an investment thesis around the roll-up of wireless Internet service providers. Rick Shrotri, Founder and Managing Partner at Digital Alpha, explained, “As we developed our wireless ISP investment thesis, we became aware of Tarana’s breakthrough technology, and each operator’s story underscored how ngFWA is fundamentally changing network performance and operator economics. Tarana’s G1 platform supplies the key missing ingredient in enabling wireless ISPs to offer highly competitive broadband, take share, and grow value in their businesses — at a months-not-years deployment pace competitive technologies just cannot match.”

In addition to traditional equity investments into wireless Internet services providers, Digital Alpha is also offering a novel revenue-share financing solution to Tarana customers looking to expand their deployments of G1. Digital Alpha's deep domain and industry expertise makes them uniquely suited to fund infrastructure deployments that are bridging the digital divide and enabling connectivity transformations across local communities. To date, Digital Alpha has funded existing Tarana customers such as Element 8 and Wisper ISP and is looking forward to partnering with Tarana to offer its funding model in pursuit of new market opportunities and additional wireless internet service providers.

Since its launch of G1 in late 2021, Tarana has seen explosive growth in demand for its novel ngFWA platform. G1 is now deployed by more than 270 service providers in 19 countries, and in 41 of the 50 states in the US. Infrastructure deployments and customer installations by the thriving G1 community are accelerating across a range of applications, including closing the digital divide, significantly upgrading subscriber speeds to increase competitiveness, and providing new choices where there are limited high-speed connectivity options. Revenues in G1’s first full year of sales (2022) were nearly $100M, and orders plus sales continue to climb in 2023. These strong business fundamentals drove a 40% year-over-year increase in the company’s valuation.

Tarana CEO Basil Alwan noted, “Digital Alpha knows our customers’ business intimately, which has provided early insights into ngFWA and the momentum building in our business. This investment along with those in our customers makes them a natural and great partner. Our rapid growth has created more opportunities along with higher working capital requirements; this financing will play an essential role in maintaining our trajectory, supporting our customers’ continued growth, and expanding our reach globally.”

About Digital Alpha

Digital Alpha Advisors, LLC is an investment firm focused on digital infrastructure required by the rapidly expanding digital economy, with total assets under management of over $1.5B. The firm has a strategic collaboration agreement with Cisco Systems, Inc. and has partnered with other leading Silicon Valley firms. Digital Alpha believes it is the first firm focused on making private equity investments in the significant growth opportunities required to underpin the Digital Economy, including next generation communications networks, IoT platforms for urban infrastructure, and cloud-based data management platforms. Digital Alpha was founded in 2017 by Rick Shrotri, former Head of the Global Infrastructure Funds (GIF) team at Cisco, and closed its latest Fund – Digital Alpha Fund II, LP – in early 2021. For more information, please visit www.digitalalpha.net.

About Tarana

Tarana’s mission is to accelerate the deployment of fast, affordable internet access around the world. Through a decade of R&D and over $400M of investment, the Tarana team has created a unique next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) technology instantiated in its first commercial platform, Gigabit 1 (G1). It delivers a game-changing advance in broadband economics in both mainstream and underserved markets, using either licensed or unlicensed spectrum. G1 started production in mid-2021 and has since been embraced by over 200 service providers in 21 countries. Tarana is headquartered in Milpitas, California, with additional research and development in Pune, India. Visit www.taranawireless.com for more on G1.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements (“statements” henceforth) as defined in applicable securities laws, identified by words such as anticipate, intend, plan, goal, seek, believe, project, estimate, expect, strategy, future, likely, may, should, will, and similar references to future periods. Such statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance and are based only on our current beliefs regarding the future of our business, anticipated events and trends, the economy’s direction, and other future conditions. These statements are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict, many of which we cannot control. Since our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated here, you should not rely on any of these statements. All statements are based only on information currently available to us as of September 13, 2023. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.