Raspberry Pi gets $45M to meet demand for low-cost PCs and IoT
It turned out that COVID-19 lockdowns were good for the indoor hobby of hardware hacking: The British base behind the low-priced Raspberry Pi microprocessor announced yesterday that it had closed a $ 45 million financing round.
The cash injection into the trading arm of the (nonprofit) Raspberry Pi Foundational is valued at $ 500 million (before the money), confirmed founder Eben Upton.
The funding round was led by London-based Lansdowne Partners and The Ezrah Charitable Trust, a US-based private charity foundation.
“We are excited to welcome Lansdowne Partners and The Ezrah Charitable Trust as our first outside shareholders to help us take the next steps in our growth,” said Upton in a statement. “We’re seeing strong demand from consumers who use our PCs to access the Internet for work and entertainment, and even faster growth from industrial companies around the world as they integrate Raspberry Pi into their innovative IoT applications. This funding will allow us to scale up to meet future demand.
“Our new investors will not only add value to our strategy and support our growth, but they will understand the rationale and ethos of our business model, which aims to provide everyone with access to hardware and software tools and a consumer PC experience Offering only $ 35 and partnering with a growing number of OEMs around the world. “
The Pi Foundation said the funding will be used to expand an already extensive line of Pi microprocessors.
There are also plans to spend on marketing, both for the consumer sector (“build it yourself” PC) and for the industrial sector (IoT).
Its trading arm currently delivers more than 7 million devices a year.
Overall, however, the Pi Foundation also stated that it supplies over 42 million (Pi-operated) PCs to more than 100 countries.
Sept. 24, 2021