The startup aims to cause a revolution in people's connectivity, using Machine Learning to solve broadband and Wi-Fi issues, without having to contact the operator to complain.
São Paulo, January 2022. Indicator Capital, a Brazilian early-stage venture capital firm, is leading a US$ 2.2 million investment round in Beegol, a SaaS company that uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to monitor and improve the quality of services provided by broadband operators. Beegol's platform is the only one in the world that monitors the network “end to end”, including all the necessary components to provide excellent Quality of Experience (QoE) to the end customer while reducing operational costs to major ISPs and Telcos.
This is the fourth contribution made through the Indicator 2 IoT Fund, the largest Internet of Things and Connectivity specialized fund in Latin America. The Series A round is expected to be completed within 18 months with an extra amount of US$ 2 million bringing the total investment to US$ 4.2 million.
Founded in 2019, Beegol aims to improve the way Operators deliver broadband services, which are increasingly vital for the home, work, study and social environments such as gaming and video conferencing. ISPs and Telcos currently spend 6% to 10% of their annual net broadband revenue addressing technical issues, including call center interactions and truck rolls for repairs. As demand for reliable internet connection has dramatically increased over the last years, technical problems are now one of the main causes of customer complaints and higher costs. Beegol’s goal is to enable broadband operators to immediately locate, identify and fix issues anywhere in their network, thus increasing QoE and reducing operational, customer support and churn costs.
To achieve this, Beegol has developed a Machine Learning platform that monitors, identifies, and locates problems in the network using data collected through a software agent embedded in the modem (telemetry) in real-time. This data then allows operators to anticipate and avoid future issues and self-heal issues that may be addressed immediately. Beegol’s agent collects data from all network components, including residential Wi-Fi, access network (cable or fiber), and throughout the transport layers and its key components such as DNS and CDN.
With Beegol’s geo-location and mapping capabilities, operators are able to visually determine the source of degradation and service interruptions, and immediately determine if the issue impacts a single subscriber or impacts various subscribers on a certain node or nodes. The platform is scalable to tens of millions of customers and is fully software driven (no hardware required), hardware-agnostic, and deployed over the air to modems already in the field.
The Beegol team's expertise in the technology and telecommunications sectors and the capacity to solve issues that occur not only in Brazil but throughout the world (the quality of Internet and Wi-Fi services) were some of the factors that led Indicator Capital to invest in the startup, which has a presence in São Paulo, Los Angeles, New York and with a new office in Europe.
Indicator Capital co-founder, Fábio Iunis de Paula, highlights that “Beegol has enormous growth potential, not only in Brazil but internationally, as it operates in a giant market and solves the pain that is the vulnerable point of the telecommunications infrastructure and Internet around the world. The technology can identify the source of the problem and solve it efficiently only with the AI software embedded in the modem. The virtualization of network functions is a megatrend in the telecommunications sector, as it happened in data communication, solving, through software, many issues that were previously hardware-dependent”.
The evolution of 5G technology, the Internet of Things, and the continuity of a large volume of people conducting their activities at home, even with the post-pandemic return, also contribute to the company's development. There are more devices connected in a network, liable to failure and requiring continuous monitoring.
Beegol’s CSO and co-founder Charles Hong, “operators and subscribers world-wide share the pain of broadband and Wi-Fi connectivity issues. While the hardware installed in most homes today have evolved into quite robust computing systems, the software and diagnostics capability currently available to them are in great need of improvement. We fill this gap and help operators maximize the heavy investments made in the customer premise devices (CPEs) by providing a solution that can be sent out to the modems over the air and immediately start to deliver results for the customer and the operator. The path is towards zero calls to call centers due to technical issues, as the operator’s hardware and Beegol’s machine learning software should identify issues before a customer ever has to call”.
For the founder and CEO of Beegol, Gilberto Mayor, “Beegol's entirely software-based platform solves this challenge holistically and puts the data in the hands of the operator with no need to change legacy systems thus it can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world. The investment and partnership with Indicator accelerate our globalization process”.
Once the investment is completed, Indicator Capital will use its expertise and international presence by applying at Beegol its proprietary methodology Building Value Together®, especially the Cross-Border pillar, focused on business development with global companies and investors. Simultaneously, the VC manager will also apply the other three pillars of the methodology: connection with the ecosystem, 'hands on' approach and collaboration to generate new businesses, development supporting innovation and investments, contributing to Governance and management, and helping to promote pilot projects and POCs with clients for revenue generation.
Beegol is also aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) metrics, especially with item 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure). “The technology offered by Beegol, in addition to bringing innovation, makes it possible to make the telecom infrastructure more resilient and sustainable”, concludes Fabio Iunis de Paula.
About Indicator Capital
Founded in 2014, Indicator Capital is a Brazilian venture capital firm operating in Sao Paulo and the Silicon Valley. The partnership formed by Derek Lundgren Bittar, Fabio Iunis de Paula, and Thomas Lundgren Bittar, promotes the convergence between the dream of the entrepreneur and the financial return for the investor, tropicalizing American best practices to national startups. With more than R$ 270MM under management, Indicator Capital is the largest early-stage venture capital firm in Latin America specialized in the Internet of Things (IoT). In their investments, the partners apply value-adding, proprietary methodology Building Value Together®, besides acting as Investors for Good, a concept reinforced by the firm`s certification as a B System™ company.
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