Australian internet-of-things (IoT) operator National Narrowband Network Co (NNNCo) has signed a strategic investment agreement with global energy and environment company Enzen Group. The $8 million deal is geared towards driving LoRaWAN adoption in Australia “at scale”.
The pair said they are in position to help industries to “deliver usable data from infinite applications”, using LoRaWAN connectivity and data management tools.
The investment will be used to extend NNNCo’s LoRa-based low-power wide-area (LPWA) network, enhance its enterprise software platform, and expand its solutions into vertical markets including energy, water, cities, logistics, mining, agriculture, property, and health and safety.
The Enzen Group is headquartered in India with projects in over 20 geographies and offices in seven countries. It has an Australian head office in Adelaide, plus sites in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland. Enzen Australia is focused on energy, water and cities.
NNNCo has several large-scale IoT projects, either deployed or in planning, with City of Gold Coast, Gold Coast Water, Hunter Water, Newcastle City Council, Lake Macquarie Council and Goanna Ag. The company recently extended its LoRaWAN network across the entire Gold Coast Local Government Area.
Rob Zagarella, co-founder and chief executive at NNNCo, said: “IoT has reached a tipping point and is primed to deliver its promise of productivity improvements, enhanced efficiencies and more sustainable operations for businesses and entire industries.
“We’re able to connect sensors to just about anything from water mains pipes to streetlights to irrigation pumps. But more importantly, this investment and partnership means we can now do that at scale, deliver usable data from infinite applications, and enable that data to be integrated into business operations for real-time optimisation.”
“With this partnership, we will be able to tap into Enzen Australia’s extensive expertise and credibility in key sectors such as energy, water and cities, as well as leveraging the global reach of Enzen Global,” Mr Zagarella said.
“We believe there is a real opportunity for Australia to lead the world in the next wave of IoT digitisation and together with Enzen we will be at the forefront of that,” he concluded.
Dileep Viswanath, chief executive at Enzen Australia, commented: “NNNCo has deep technical, network and solutions capability in IoT and has had strong traction with utilities and cities in Australia. We see very clear advantages for our customers in leveraging these capabilities to provide a comprehensive end-to-end service.
“Our goal is to enable energy, water companies and cities in particular to make sustainable improvements to their efficiency and performance, and together with NNNCo we will work with industry and government to accelerate that transformation.”
He added: “For our energy business, this partnership builds on our ability to integrate renewable energy and storage resources with controlling demand response which will ultimately lower energy costs while increasing security.’’
NNNCo was established in 2015 by Zagarella, a veteran of of Gridsense, General Electric and Grid Net in the US, and David Spence, chairman of PayPal Australia, and formerly chief executive at Ozemail and Unwired and ex-chair of Vocus Communications. It received Series A funding in 2016
Spence has been appointed executive chair. Former Vocus chief financial officer Rick Correll has taken an executive director position. Ian Mcleod, director for smart energy at Enzen, and Rahul Choraria, finance head at Enzen Group, are to join the NNNCo board.
NNNCo has built its own tech-agnostic enterprise software platform, called N2N-DL. The platform is key to its expansion plans, it said.
Zagerella commented: “The N2N-DL Platform is important to our growth because it enables customers to deploy IoT solutions at scale to meet their specific data requirements, regardless of the device or network they use, and overcomes some of the major complexities that have been a barrier to IoT previously.”
