Foghorn’s latest fundraiser could make for a more efficient and safer industrial workplace in the future.
Foghorn recently announced that they have managed to secure $30 million in funding which will be used towards IoT computing analysis research.
The company which was established in 2014, specializes in providing data analytic software to the industrial and commercial Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Their latest venture, which is co-led by Intel Capital and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, attracted several high-profile investors including Honeywell Ventures, March Capital, GE, Dell, Bosch, Yokogawa, Darling Ventures, and The Hive.
According to Foghorn CEO, David King, recently stated that during the industrial applications of IoT, such as manufacturing facilities, oil and gas production sites, and transportation systems, there are often several thousands of physical and video/audio sensors needed which in turn produces a huge amount of high-velocity data. According to King, the large amount of data will be collected at the network edge.
Edge computing is a technique which optimises a cloud computing system that allows the data to be processed at the edge of the network. The allows the computing to happen near the source of the data.
Industrial operators are currently facing many challenges when it comes to collecting and processing data. Some challenges include an inability to process high volumes of data collecting sources as well as the high costs incurred during the transport of the data in the cloud. These challenges often limit real-time insights.
Delayed responses are often caused by the system’s inability to process data. This could lead to potentially dangerous situations, especially in the industry sectors.
Foghorn’s previously released platform, Lightning, was tailored to function in a significantly small footprint edge computing systems of 265MB or smaller. According to King, the reason for this is that the majority of data that is streamed from IoT sensors is useless in a very short amount of time. The most valuable information generally needs to be acted on immediately so that a corrective action can be put in place.
Currently, Foghorn licenses their software on a subscription basis to a few dozen clients. According to King, their small footprint makes them a forerunner in the field of cloud computing. While Amazon Greengrass and Microsoft Azure Edge are working towards minimizing their footprint, their respective systems still have heavy cloud software stacks as both systems still send the majority of the data to the cloud for advanced data science functionality.
Most notably, Foghorn’s latest investor, the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, could secure Foghorns place in the world’s biggest oil-producing country.
King confirmed the company’s willingness to partner with Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures as they believe that oil and gas can be a lucrative market for the computing industry in the future.
Since the start of the fundraising, Foghorn has raised a total of $47.5 million. According to the company, these funds will go towards hiring the very best engineers to refine their computing systems and to increase sales and marketing efforts.
