US smart cities technology and media firm Intersection has formally announced that it has received $150m in a recent funding round which was led by US conglomerate Graham Holdings Company. New investors Arrow-Mark Partners and New-Spring also invested. The strategic plan behind the financing round is to accelerate the deployment of its smart city technology on a global scale.
The cutting-edge technology has already been deployed in cities such as New York and London. It has also emerged that Intersection will use some of the investment to accelerate the digitization of its existing media asset network in leading US designated marketing areas (DMAs) to develop next generation of its technology platform.
However, Intersection indicated that the majority of the investment will be concentrated to bring the Link product and other revolutionary 'smart city' technology to cities and transit systems internationally. In addition to this, it has emerged that CEO of Graham Holdings, Tim O'Shaughnessy and Senior VP at the US conglomerate Jake Mass will join the board of directors at Intersection alongside co-founder and general partner of New-Spring Marc Lederman.
CEO of Intersection, Ari Buchalter, expressed his delight at the latest financing round, and declared that its technology can transform cities and the lives of its residents by improving connectivity and mobility. He said, "We believe in the transformative power of technology to elevate the urban experience - delivering benefits like free internet connectivity, real-time information, localized content, and civic services - as Link has done on the streets of New York City and London. We are incredibly excited to be joined by a visionary group of investors to help propel our technology leadership position in the smart cities and digital media spaces."
The ethos and fundamental objective of Intersection is to apply digital technology to the physical world to improve the experience of public space. Its business models fund innovation through advertising that provides opportunities for brands to reach audiences with 'physical native' advertising. The technology firm also claimed that the investment will build on the Link network in New York and London and the recently announced Link in Philadelphia.
IxNConnect transit platform is powering products such as the On-The-Go kiosks in the MTA transit system in New York City and transit information kiosks in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority.
O' Shaughnessy added, "Intersection is the clear leader in deploying real-world smart city solutions at scale. We believe there is tremendous opportunity for the company to leverage their experience from massive deployments like LinkNYC, extensive municipal and advertising relationships, and unique capabilities in data, engineering, user experience, and design to create tremendous value for cities, consumers and brands."