Official: Cyanogen has raised $80 million in Series C funding
We’d heard Cyanogen recently secured a massive wad of cash in Series C funding, and now that news has been made official. The company reportedly raked in $80 million of fresh investments from a sizable and noteworthy group of ventures and companies, making it $110 million that they’ve raised to date and should put the company’s valuation at just around $1 billion.
On the list were Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm Incorporated, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Access Industries, Rupert Murdoch, Vivi Nevo. They were joined by existing investors Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. There were more, though Cyanogen is opting not to disclose who at this time.
There were rumors rampant early on that Microsoft would be billed as a minority investor in this round of funding, though that rumor was later debunked. That doesn’t mean the two didn’t at least talk about it, though, so there’s nothing that stops it from happening at any point in the future.
The growing interest in Cyanogen likely stems from a long-term vision the company has set forth to create a new Android-based ecosystem to make it more approachable for budding device makers than going the Google route. We’ve already seen the tangible results of the partnership in phones like the OnePlus One and Micromax’s Yureka phone, and even Qualcomm has decided to team up with them to make Cyanogen OS available on Snapdragon development prototype devices.
The exact plan for the future is still unclear to the public, but to be able to generate $80 million from a group of money-flooded companies and individuals they have to be onto something big. Let’s hope it won’t take long to find out.