Smart Home SaaS Startup Plume Raises $270M Series E, Reaching $1.35B Valuation

Plume, the software-as-a-service platform for communications service providers, has raised $270 million in a new round of funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.35 billion. 

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The company’s platform serves connected homes, delivering features like optimum Wi-Fi, parental controls and motion sensing to smart home residents while giving communication service providers back-end applications to provide support. The cloud platform essentially helps curate services throughout the home, according to CEO Fahri Diner.

“The smart home category has evolved, and this is all about personalized experiences for people,”  Diner said in an interview with Crunchbase News. “We’re trying to give the service providers the product, the modern services they need to retain their customers and grow their top line.”

The Palo Alto-based company has experienced rapid growth in the past year or so. Plume began 2020 with about 50 customers and added approximately 100 over the course of the year. So far in 2021, it’s acquired 20 customers, bringing its total customer count to 170. Plume serves about 22 million households, according to the company, up from 20 million in December 2020.

Business was strong prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic and so many people working from home has helped accelerate growth. 

“There’s no question the pandemic has created a tailwind for us and many other companies have seen a similar effect,” Diner said. “But the pandemic wasn’t the primary reason why we’ve been growing at the same kind of rate.”

The company plans to use the new funding to earn more customers by focusing on partnerships in the service provider ecosystem and investing in research and development. Plume currently has about 300 employees and will likely double its headcount by the end of the year, Diner said.

“The experience an end user has for their Wi-Fi connectivity is only as good as all of the equipment in their home allow it to be,” Insight Partners managing director Ryan Hinkle said in an interview. With the new funding, Plume will be able to “pour fuel on the fire,” to accelerate growth, Hinkle said.

The Series E round, was led by Insight Partners. Plume last raised money with an $85 million Series D in February 2020, according to Crunchbase. 

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias