According to a news release by Aqara, the brand’s parent company Lumi United Technology has recently raised over $156 million in Series C round.
The investment, the largest one in China’s Internet of things (IoT) industry this year, was led by Shenzhen Capital Group with participation of Joy Capital, CT-Ventures, Greenwoods Investment, United Media FOFs, and Unicom CICC Investment.
Details:
According to the announcement, the proceedings will be used for the company’s products R&D, global channels expansion, branding, and talent recruitments.
The Shenzhen-based company joins the unicorn club after the Series C round.
Aqara was founded in 2009 under the name of Lutuo (绿拓) by Eugene You and initially focused on wireless control system of buildings. In 2014, Aqara joined Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem Mi Home after the latter’s investment, and was rebranded as developing and designing hardware and software solutions for the home.
Context:
As of May, Aqara has over 500 stock-keeping units (SKUs) and served more than 200,000 households, the company said in a press conference in May.
Currently, the company has 600 offline experience stores and more than 1,000 employees.
Aqara works with HomeKit, a software framework by Apple, made available in iOS/iPadOS that lets users configure smart-home appliances using Apple devices.