Japanese venture capital firm Global Brain (GB) and KDDI announced a $5 million investment in Resin.io, an innovative startup that provides a comprehensive management platform for Linux based IoT devices. The platform provided by Resin is being adopted globally in various size companies, from SME to large organizations in various industries.

As a general partner of KDDI Open Innovation Fund III, Global Brain Corporation in collaboration with SORACOM, KDDI Group company, set up the SORACOM IoT Fund Program in order to strengthen its efforts on areas that are increasingly important in the 5G era, and will discover promising startups utilizing knowledge of networks, technologies and business with startups owned by Global Brain, KDDI and SORACOM.

GB has evaluated Resin’s past achievements and technical capability and will leverage its resources to support Resin in collaboration with SORACOM.

The investment is the first from the Soracom IoT Fund Program, a component of the KDDI Open Innovation Fund III recently launched by KDDI Corporation, Soracom’s parent company, and Japan’s second-largest telecommunication service provider. The mission of the Soracom Fund is to identify and support innovative companies advancing the state-of-the-art in IoT.

“Soracom’s mission, to make the connected world of IoT a reality, requires a broad and robust ecosystem of software and service providers. Resin.io dramatically lowers the barrier for developers who are already familiar with cloud and web development to deploy software onto IoT devices. Joining forces between both platforms accelerates successful IoT projects.”

“Resin.io has succeeded by delivering a platform that helps developers manage the many challenges of building and deploying software to devices on the edge. At the same time, Soracom has solved the problem of providing simple and secure connectivity for edge devices. Taken together, these solutions provide developers with critical infrastructure for their IoT projects, freeing up organizations to focus on building their fleets and growing their business.”

“KDDI is drawing on the expertise in its group of companies to make strategic investments in areas like AI and IoT that are poised for growth in the 5G era. Our role at Soracom is to identify key builders of the global IoT infrastructure and help accelerate their growth both with funding and enhanced collaboration. Resin.io has pioneered the use of containers as the software vehicle for constrained devices and proven that they play a big role in successful IoT strategies.”