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Andy Rubin’s Essential raises $300 million

By TechTaffy Desk

Essential Products, the Palo Alto, California-based company founded by Andy Rubin, has raised $300 million in a funding round. Access Technology Ventures, the venture capital and growth technology investment arm of privately-held industrial group Access Industries, invested $100 million. Redpoint Ventures, Tencent, Altimeter Capital, Vy Capital and Amazon’s Alexa Fund also participated in the funding round.

Essential is ‘focused on creating consumer technology products for the 21st century’ according to its corporate website. The company has an operating system called Ambient OS, for home automation. The company is also launching a titanium phone, called Essential PH-1, for $699 a pop.

Mr. Rubin is co-founder of the Android operating system. His previous roles include senior vice president of Mobile with Google. He has also held engineering roles with Microsoft and Apple, and was entrepreneur-in-residence with Redpoint from 2003 to 2004.

Essential has raised $330 million to date.

[Image courtesy: Essential Products]

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