Ditto, a company that’s setting out to bring “resilient” connectivity to edge devices, has raised $82 million in a Series B round of funding at a post-money valuation of $462 million, more than double its Series A valuation from 2023.
“Edge,” in the context of Ditto’s industry, refers to a distributed computing model that brings data processing and storage closer to where it’s generated (e.g. IoT sensors, 5G routers or smartphones) rather than having to rely on centralized data centers and cloud platforms. It’s all about reducing latency and optimizing bandwidth requirements by processing data either on a device itself, or on dedicated “edge servers” located near to where the data is generated.
In the age of AI and computationally intensive machine learning models, this can be vital, particularly when real-time decisions are paramount, or any situation where connectivity is patchy. Speed is the name of the game.
Ditto bypasses physical edge servers, which its CEO and co-founder Adam Fish says is a costly, labor-intensive endeavor that customers can do without.
“Imagine your local fast food restaurant chain — if they’ve added in additional servers and built out Wi-Fi networks in all their locations, when something goes wrong, no one on-site is equipped to fix it,” Fish told TechCrunch over email. “This restaurant is required to have costly technicians available. One customer described the situation as ‘whack-a-mole’.”
Instead, Ditto uses the hardware that companies’ workforce already employ, such as smartphones.
“We replace hardware with software — a no-brainer choice,” Fish added.
Flying high
Founded in 2018, San Francisco-based Ditto raised $45 million in Series A funding two years ago, in addition to a $9 million seed round in 2021. The company has already amassed an impressive roster of customers, including a $950 million contract with the U.S. Air Force in 2022. In the past year, Ditto says its customer count has doubled to more than 30, and its annual recurring revenue (ARR) has increased by 250%, though it declined to divulge specific numbers.
Ditto’s platform constitutes a core “edge sync” component, which is an embeddable software development kit (SDK) that device-makers can integrate with their application. This allows companies to tap into devices’ built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or local LAN capabilities to create “ad-hoc mesh networks,” whereby apps can discover and communicate with each other independently of a centralized cloud server. Ditto serves as a mobile database that apps read and write to locally.
It’s this approach that has led Ditto to attract several major airlines as customers, including Delta, Japan Airlines and Lufthansa.
