Skyhook nabs $8.5 million for WiFi-GPS network

July 13, 2007 | Matt Marshall

Skyhook Wireless, a Boston company seeking to become the first company to link GPS locations to Wifi hotspots nationwide to make it easier for advertisers to target mobile users, has gotten another $8.5 million in capital.

The four-year-old company has now raised $16.8 million. The financing, first reported by VentureWire (sub required), was led by RRE Ventures and included existing investors Bain Capital, Intel Capital and CommonAngels.

According to VentureWire:

Skyhook is creating a map to link GPS locations to Wi-Fi hotspots to improve efficiency for some location-based applications which use GPS for tracking, a technology that does not work well in densely populated or indoor areas. Skyhook, which has been mapping Wi-Fi networks in all of America’s most densely populated areas, has created a reference point that can help location-based applications orient themselves when GPS won’t work.

This lets advertisers serve customers with more geographically relevant information.

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Tags: deal

About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.