Getting to Know Nodle.io and the Seed Funding
Nodle.io, a provider for a connectivity and Internet of Things network, just announced the completion of its seed round. During the seed funding round, Nodle.io raised an impressive $1.5 million and launched its new cryptocurrency that will monetize Internet of Things applications, data, and connections.
Nodle.io crowdsources a network made up of smartphones to deliver internet connectivity to various Internet of Things devices. At the moment, the Nodle Citizen Network has more than 1 million devices connected to it on a daily basis. As such, it holds the title of the most extensive dedicated network for the IoT deployed to date, based on the number of its base stations. According to a press release from Nodle, its connectivity solution is global and straightforward, as it is “plug and play.”
According to the CEO and co-founder of Nodle.io, Micha Benoliel, the main challenges that stand in the way of IoT deployments are the difficulty and high cost associated with connecting remote devices. This is the problem that Nodle aims to overcome, and it does so by using mobile phones to create the decentralized infrastructure of the network. This infrastructure can support transactions that number in the hundreds of thousands every second. This infrastructure comes thanks to partnerships with application developers, telcos, and consumer electronics manufacturers.
Nodle and Cryptocurrency
Additionally, those telcos, app developers, and consumer electronics manufacturers can use the Nodle Software Development Kit (SDK) to monetize their applications, earning NODL coins in return for assisting the network’s growth.
In addition to creating their cryptocurrency to let developers monetize applications, Nodle is making it possible to remotely mine cryptocurrency via a smartphone in a way that is accessible and efficient. Best of all, this smartphone-based crypto mining uses less than 1 percent of the battery life of a phone. That last part is significant since before Nodle’s creation of the Citizen Network with connected devices, smartphone-based crypto mining was impractical. It would slow the CPU due to overheating and drain the battery.
As the prevalence of Internet of Things devices expands, so do the use cases for Nodle. Consumer tracking manufacturers, like Chipolo, Wistiki, and Orbit, already use Nodle’s network. There are also applications for industrial tracking, and Nodle is actively working with the city of Paris to complete a test that utilizes the network to track 60,000 pieces of concrete furniture for over a decade using minimal energy.
What Supporters Have to Say
Ken Seiff, a managing partner with Blockchange Ventures, believes that the creation of D2D (Device to Device) communication and commerce is one of the areas that the blockchain will significantly disrupt. Seiff explained in a release that his company chose to invest in Nodle’s mesh network due to a strong belief that this company will be in the forefront when the landscape shifts.
Nicolai Wadstrom, from BoostrapLabs, which is another investor in Noble.io’s seed funding round, indicated that there is a massive opportunity for a distributed IoT network. To take advantage of this opportunity, the network would need to be fail-tolerant and ubiquitous, as well as work for low-powered and super-small devices anywhere. In a release, Wadstrom pointed to the vast experience of CEO Benoliel as a strong point in favor of Nodle’s ability to stay ahead of the competition.