Eero, the maker of home Wi-Fi devices that use multiple access points to improve coverage, on Tuesday will announce that it has raised $50 million in new venture capital funding. It also will unveil a non-exclusive retail agreement with Best Buy (BBY), whereby Eero devices will be available at BestBuy.com next week and in more than 500 Best Buy bricks and mortar stores sometime this summer.
The two announcements are related because Eero plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its manufacturing capacity. “We need to make sure we’re keeping up with demand,” explains Nick Weaver, Eero’s co-founder and CEO. “Our weeks of inventory on hand are much lower than we’d like and, once we’re in Best Buy, it’s not like putting a product online where you can just be out of stock for a day or two… We need to be able to perform.”
Weaver isn’t saying how many systems Eero has sold so far. But he did say it delivered all of its 25,000 pre-ordered units in late February. Since then, he adds that the company has been pushing new software updates on nearly a weekly basis, including network performance improvements and user-facing features like letting people manage multiple networks. Prior to the Best Buy agreement, Eero sold its products via its own website and Amazon (which recently invested in a rival startup called Luma).
“Both Eero.com and Amazon are really healthy channels for us, and on any given day [the top-selling site] flips back and forth,” Weaver says.
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Eero currently has around 100 employees in its San Francisco headquarters, over half of whom work in product and engineering. It also has customer support and manufacturing teams in Texas.
Menlo Ventures (where Weaver once worked) led the new funding round, with partner Mark Siegel (a former director with home security camera maker Dropcam) joining the Eero board of directors. Index Ventures also participated (led by Mike Volpi, a current board member for home speaker maker Sonos), alongside existing shareholders First Round Capital, Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Playground Global.
Eero, which has now raised a total of $87 million, declined to disclose its valuation.
