This week, Samsung & Sigfox organized a VIP Event in Paris, where a much-anticipated “big partnership” was expected to be announced. The event comes just one month after SIGFOX revealed at Samsung’s San Francisco event that they would be a partner on the new ARTIK platform. In addition, swirling rumors propelled by SIGFOX CEO & Co-Founder Ludovic Lo Moan suggested that SIGFOX had not, in fact, closed its €100 Million round, and were getting ready to welcome a large, international player into their capital. Samsung was thus suspected to be said player.
During the event, Samsung restated its commitment to make its ARTIK module with the SIGFOX network. Samsung CSO Young Sohn was joined on stage by SIGFOX co-founder Ludovic Le Moan to talk about how SIGFOX & ARTIK could be an unbeatable combination for IoT.
Boom! Samsung is not only announcing a partnership with @SIGFOX but also that they're investing in the company! #samsungVIPevent
— Cédric Giorgi (@cgiorgi) June 15, 2015
#breakingnews #samsung invests into @sigfox! Congrats @kernelKing @cgiorgi pic.twitter.com/C8BbgwmBqc
— Antoine Levêque (@nt1_lvq) June 15, 2015
However, the big announcement, that Samsung will invest in SIGFOX, came quickly, with Samsung’s CSO saying they believe SIGFOX can “Help connect the world.” Le Moan had previously stated that he had turned down an offer for several hundreds of millions of euros, and many had already speculated the round had gone as high as 130 or 150 Million euros.
In addition to an undisclosed sum of investment, Samsung has announced it will open up an IoT R&D Center in Paris, where Samsung’s Luc Julia already had a small team of engineers for the past 9 months.
More coming as the story develops.