DigitalBridge Ventures leads latest round of funding to fuel expansion
of worldwide sales, R&D, and channel development
Funding to drive further scale in the enterprise 5G networking opportunity
CUPERTINO, Calif., March 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Celona, the first enterprise networking company to bridge the gap between LTE/5G cellular wireless and enterprise IT infrastructures, announced today that it has closed a $60 million Series C financing round led by DigitalBridge Ventures, the Venture Capital initiative of DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (NYSE: DBRG) (“DigitalBridge”). Additionally, Celona has further strengthened its executive leadership team with the recent appointment of Robert Mustarde as senior vice president of Worldwide Sales. Mr. Mustarde is an industry veteran who has held leadership positions at companies including Versa Networks and Ruckus Wireless.
The financing round also included participation from all of Celona’s existing investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, NTTVC, Qualcomm Ventures and Cervin Ventures. The new financing brings Celona’s total capital investment to $100 million. The proceeds will be used to accelerate Celona’s worldwide expansion, channel growth and research & development efforts.
“This latest financing round is a strong endorsement of both our existing accomplishments leading the market in 5G network adoption and the tremendous growth prospects still ahead for Celona,” said Rajeev Shah, co-founder and CEO of Celona. “We are proud to have the support of a top-tier group of investors, including DigitalBridge leading this financing round. We believe that Celona has all the right pieces in place to build upon our foundation of disruptive innovation and leadership with our 5G LAN technology, particularly with these additional resources to expand our reach and grow our capabilities.”
“Celona has brought a solution to the private 5G market that we believe will have a transformative impact on the entire industry,” said Marc Ganzi, president and CEO of DigitalBridge. “We will be leveraging DigitalBridge’s leadership and resources in digital infrastructure to expand our ventures platform by investing in exciting, entrepreneurial businesses like Celona. We are thrilled to partner with Celona for DigitalBridge’s inaugural venture investment, and we see tremendous potential for the business’ continued growth and leadership in the private cellular space.”
Since launching the first fully integrated 5G LAN platform in November 2020, Celona has seen strong demand from a range of enterprises, managed service providers, and mobile network operators looking to satisfy strategic digital business initiatives not adequately addressed today. The company’s diverse customer base includes world-class organizations such as Verizon, NTT Ltd, SBA Communications, St. Luke’s Hospital System, Purdue Research Foundation, Stanislaus State University, and many other brand-named enterprises.
Celona’s 5G LAN platform is used by manufacturers, retailers, hospitals, schools, and supply-chain leaders to drive transformational results for a wide range of mission-critical use cases that require the deterministic wireless connectivity on private & interference-free cellular spectrum and fast mobility for new generation of highly mobile devices and robotics infrastructures.
It is the only private 5G solution in the industry that has been purpose-built to help organizations easily deploy, operate, and integrate 5G cellular technology with their existing infrastructure. Patented MicroSlicing™ technology enables customers to offer guaranteed QoS, latency and performance on a per application and per device group basis. Organizations can see Celona’s unique 5G LAN solution in action by visiting https://celona.io/journey.
ABOUT CELONA
Celona accelerates the adoption for business-critical apps in the enterprise by taking advantage of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum. Celona’s solution architecture is designed to automate deployment of cellular wireless by enterprise IT organizations and managed service providers, and drastically simplify its integration with an existing enterprise IT infrastructure. As the provider of the first networking platform for enterprise cellular, Celona’s mission is to take enterprise wireless to where it has not yet been. For more information, please visit celona.io. Follow Celona on Twitter @celonaio.
ABOUT DIGITALBRIDGE
DigitalBridge (NYSE: DBRG) is a leading global digital infrastructure REIT. With a heritage of over 25 years investing in and operating businesses across the digital ecosystem including cell towers, data centers, fiber, small cells, and edge infrastructure, the DigitalBridge team manages a $45 billion portfolio of digital infrastructure assets on behalf of its limited partners and shareholders. Headquartered in Boca Raton, DigitalBridge has key offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Singapore. For more information, visit: digitalbridge.com.
Media Contacts
Jay Nichols / Celona
Nichols Communications
jay@nicholscomm.com
+1 (408)-504-5487
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher / DigitalBridge
Jon Keehner / Aura Reinhard
(212) 355-4449
DBRG-jf@joelefrank.com
