Fintech startup Lightyear raises $3.7m to simplify how enterprises buy network infrastructure

Fintech startup Lightyear raises $3.7m to simplify how enterprises buy network infrastructure

Published: 28-10-2020 13:59:00 | By: Pie Kamau | hits: 4583 | Tags:

Financial technology startup Lightyear announced the launch of its software platform for businesses to buy and manage their telecom and IT infrastructure online. The company has raised $3.7M to date and their recent seed round was led by Amplo with participation from Susa Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, Mark CubanDavid Adelman, and Operator Partners (founders of Flatiron Health).

Lightyear works with 400+ telecom and IT service providers, allowing businesses to outsource and automate their procurement of services like dedicated internet access, SD-WAN, colocation, and VoIP. Customers can easily configure services online, receive transparent, best-available price quotes, and have their implementation project managed by Lightyear upon quote selection. Post-installation, Lightyear helps companies organize and monitor network inventory and services spend, automating renewal cycle processing for enterprises. The service is free while in Beta, and there's no other place online where businesses can configure, purchase, and manage these services.

Dennis Thankachan, Co-founder and CEO, Lightyear: "The purchase process for even a single DIA circuit is slow and offline today. Several phone calls and emails are required just to get a price quote, implementation is a huge hassle, and information is rarely centralized post-install. We're effectively building the modern CRM for network infrastructure to fix this."

Lightyear was founded in July 2019 by Dennis Thankachan (CEO) and Ryan Schrack (CTO) and raised a pre-seed round in late 2019 prior to the recent seed round. The seed funding builds on an exceptional year for Lightyear where they picked up several enterprise clients and started platform Beta testing that received rave reviews. Lightyear intends to use this new funding to aggressively accelerate product development with a focus on network planning, management, and inventory capabilities.

Rob Rodier, VP of Sales, Lightyear: "Data is the core of the problem in telecom. It's hard to know where a provider's network is and what things should cost. By consolidating and sharing transparent data with our users, we empower them to make better procurement decisions and optimize their workflows."

lightyear.ai