Connectivity vendor Connected2Fiber locks up $5.3M funding round

Boston-based Connected2Fiber announced today that it has closed a $5.3 million round of funding to bring its total to more than $14 million to date.

Investors in the latest round, which was the company's third, included Ascent Venture Partners, Osage Venture Partners, Nauta Capital, and NXT Ventures.

Ben Edmond, Connected2Fiber

Connected2Fiber provides location-based analytics and applications to network sellers and buyers. Connected2Fiber says its core platform, which is called The Connected World, is the largest credible repository of network data and it tracks over 3,600 network service providers. Connected2Fiber’s data team uses GIS capabilities to map specific coordinates of over 10 million commercial locations in the United States alone.

It also has location-specific tenant data on over 12 million entities across the globe. The information includes not only the tenant’s name, but also relevant data about their business such as their technology stack and estimated telecommunications spend, which is derived from a proprietary algorithm, according to the company's website.

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Connected2Fiber's SaaS platform automates some of the manual sales and marketing processes, from plan to price, found within network operators and managed service providers. Connected2Fiber’s customer base of network sellers and buyers currently manage over 225 million locations within The Connected World globally.

“There’s tremendous opportunity in the market for Connected2Fiber to serve as the system of intelligence regarding location and network serviceability, and to enable our clients with a powerful set of applications and APIs to power participation, targeting and pricing use cases” said Ben Edmond, founder and CEO of Connected2Fiber, in a statement. “Our investors share this viewpoint, and we’ll be putting this capital to work in order to further improve our product and customer experience.”

Edmond and Chief Technology Officer John Wright previously worked for Global Capacity, which was bought by GTT two years ago. Connected2Fiber was founded four years ago and currently has 40 employees, according to emailed responses from Edmund.

Edmond said that Connected2Fiber built out its own serviceability engine and network Intelligence capabilities. Connected2Fiber isn't a member of MEF, but Edmond said his company follows MEF's meeting and conferences, and built its API to meet industry standards.

Connected2Fiber's list of sellers includes multiple-system operators (MSOs), incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECS), and competitive access providers while buyers include carriers, competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), and managed service providers (MSPs.) The company's roster of customers includes Uniti Fiber, Unitas Global and Fiberlight.

Edmond said Connected2Fiber didn't have an apples-to-apples competitor so far, but its closest competitors would be client-driven, in-house development vendors such as Netcracker, Oracle and Amdocs.

As a company that is highly tuned into connectivity, locations and analytics, Connected2Fiber is well positioned for current trends.

"There are a variety of trends driving the demand for connectivity build out and data-driven visibility into that connectivity," Edmond said. "Among the most prominent are 5G, cloud, and SD-WAN. Each of them represents a foundational shift in the way end users will consume content and services. Connectivity build out and visibility into that build out will be vital to the success and acceleration of these trends."

Going forward, Connected2Fiber's roadmap includes using artificial intelligence as a key component to predict and optimize go-to-market and pricing processes, Edmond said.