Cyanogen Inc. receives $80 million in funding

Earlier today, Cyanogen Inc. founders Steve Kondik and Kirt McMaster announced that they’ve secured $80 million in funding from a group of investors, which includes: Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Access Industries,Vivi Nevo and Rupert Murdoch, in addition to several other partners who have asked to remain anonymous.

“So what will this money be spent on?” I hear you ask. Well, the company intends to use the majority of it “to hire talent and accelerate the development of its open OS platform.” The rest is likely to be spent on advertising campaigns to raise awareness for the alternative Android operating system, which, according to Sandesh Patnam, Techology Sector Lead of Primji Invest, has the potential “to become the 3rd leading mobile OS.”

Markably absent from the list of investors is Microsoft, who were previously rumored to be donating an astonishing $30 million, which would have resulted in Cyanogen raising an eye-watering $110 million for the Series C financing campaign. However, according to Bloomberg, Microsoft may still strike a “commercial deal” with Cyanogen to pre-load its mobile apps on Cyanogen OS devices.

The full press release can be seen below:

PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwired – March 23, 2015) – Cyanogen Inc., a leading mobile operating system pure-play, announced the completion of an $80 million round of Series C financing. With offices in Palo Alto and Seattle, the company will leverage the infusion of new funding to hire talent and accelerate the development of its open OS platform.

The financing was led by Premji Invest and includes participation from new strategic investors Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm Incorporated, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Access Industries (the US-based industrial group headed by Len Blavatnik), Rupert Murdoch, Vivi Nevo, and several yet to be announced partners. Existing investors Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. also participated.

“We’re committed to creating an open computing platform that fundamentally empowers the entire mobile ecosystem from developers to hardware makers, and most importantly, consumers around the world,” said Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen Inc. “We’re excited to have the backing of an amazingly diverse group of strategic investors who are supporting us in building a truly open Android.”

“We invested in Cyanogen because we’re big proponents of what they’re doing in opening up Android and supporting global and local ecosystem players,” said Sandesh Patnam, Technology Sector Lead of Premji Invest. “Cyanogen is well positioned to become the 3rd leading mobile OS, and we’re excited to back them in growing their business on a global scale.”

To date, Cyanogen has received a total of $110 million in funding. Cyanogen is known for both its commercial distribution, Cyanogen OS, and open-source project CyanogenMod.

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