Aervivo raises another $3M for FWA ambitions

Startup Aervivo said it raised another $3 million in funding, with existing investors Kickstart Fund, TDF Ventures and Aries Capital Partners participating in the round, alongside new investors Stormbreaker Ventures and McKay Brothers.

In a LinkedIn post, the company said the funds will help its customers launch fixed wireless access (FWA) Internet services across almost half a dozen US cities.

In response to questions from Light Reading, Aervivo CEO Mike Hart explained that the company's customers are working to offer FWA services in the urban areas of San Jose and Dallas, as well as in smaller, rural communities in Santa Clara County, California, and Utah.

"Our goal for the remainder of this year is to work with our ISP [Internet service provider] partners to scale the numerous commercial pilots of our connectivity platform to bring much needed choice to 1000s of customers across several underserved communities in the US by year end," he wrote.

He said the company hopes to cover hundreds of thousands of end users with its services in the next year or so.

From Vivint to Aervivo

Hart traces his FWA origins to Vivint Internet, a provider that shuttered its services in 2020. Hart acquired the company's technology platform and founded Aervivo in order to sell FWA services to other network operators via an "as a service" business model.

Since then, Aervivo has conducted several rounds of venture capital fundraising. The company offers hardware and software, including 60GHz transmission sites and operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) management products, so that its ISP customers can quickly and easily launch fixed wireless services.

Aervivo is one of several companies chasing the FWA opportunity. T-Mobile and Verizon are both in the midst of massive FWA buildouts. The two accounted for roughly half of all the net broadband customer additions in the US in the first quarter of 2022, according to Leichtman Research Group.

Other FWA providers looking for growth include WeLink, Nextlink, Starry and UScellular.

Figure 1: WeLink's service requires a visit from a technician who installs an antenna on the roof.
(Source: WeLink)

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano