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Smart home start up backed by GE 



November 13, 2013

New York based Quirky has said it has had received $79 million in an investment round led by General Electric, as well as existing VC investors Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The deal builds on an existing partnership struck in April between GE, which is promoting an “industrial internet”, and Quirky, which combines ideas from its investor community with in-house development skills to create new consumer products, reports the FT.

The first results of that effort launched last week, including an $70 “Egg Minder” that alerts Quirky’s smartphone app, Wink, when the eggs go bad or run out.

Quirky’s funding round follows a $12.5 million fundraising by SmartThings, a competitor, from Greylock Partners and Highland Capital Partners. Last year, SmartThings raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site, for its kits for connecting physical objects to the Internet.

SmartThings’ chief executive, Alex Hawkinson, said the funds would go towards making its products easier to use, expanding distribution and working with more developers to become the “definitive open platform” in smart homes.

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Business, Equipment, Funding