SAN JOSE, Calif. — Wireless LAN software developer PanGo Networks said Wednesday at the Wi-Fi Planet Conference and Expo here that it has closed a $4.4 million round of venture capital funding and will relocate to Boston.
IDG Ventures of Boston led the round, along with Alexandria, Va.-based Columbia Capital. Previous investor Innovation Works also contributed.
The four-year-old company needed the cash infusion to stay afloat. It flirted with bankruptcy in 2001 before securing $290,000 from Innovation Works in March 2002. Including this latest round, PanGo has raised more than $6 million since its founding.
PanGo will move its headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pa., to Boston early next year to be closer to potential customers and investors, according to Rick Thompson, vice president of marketing for PanGo.
Thompson said PanGo will use the venture funding to further develop its software platform for WLAN location-based systems. Specifically, the company will focus on two main areas: intelligent information management, which would “deliver location-relevant data to mobile users,” and mobile asset tracking, which he called “one of the holy grail applications” of the location market.
PanGo believes location-based applications could be the next big thing in Wi-Fi. “Locationing is a segment of the market that’s starting to heat up, [and] applications and services are the next growth segment,” Thomson said.