WeLink融资1.85亿美元，使用5G为家庭提供高带宽无线互联网

电缆或光纤。对于绝大多数美国家庭来说，客户如何获得其互联网访问没有其他选择。如果您很幸运地生活在人口稠密，地主宜人的市区，那么“或”可能会变成“与”。然而，随着越来越多的人不仅仅依靠猫的照片来依靠互联网（在最近发生的事件之后，也许还依靠猫的照片来维持生计），显然市场需要更多的选择和竞争。 总部位于犹他州的WeLink希望成为那种选择。该公司利用毫米波技术在5G方面的进步以及硬件成本的迅速下降，率先开发了一种无线基站的网状网络，该网络可以以相对便宜的基础设施安装成本在整个社区中传输高带宽信号。 这是一种吸引投资者眼球的范例，Digital Alpha Advisors是一家长期的电信风投，与思科关系密切，向该公司投资了1.85亿美元的股权和债务工具，以换取收益分成（硬件版本的一种） SaaS证券化）。它称后者为“基于结果的财务结构”。 Digital Alpha的Rick Shrotri和Neil Sheridan将加入WeLink的董事会。

原文：Cable or fiber. For the vast majority of American homes, there’s no choice of how customers get their internet access. If you’re lucky to live in some dense urban areas with amenable landlords, that “or” might become an “and.” Yet, as more and more people rely on the internet for more than just cat photos (and after recent events, maybe rely on cat photos as well for sustenance), it seems obvious the market needs more choice and competition.

Utah-based WeLink wants to be that alternative. Taking advantage of advances in 5G in the millimeter spectrum as well as rapidly declining hardware costs, the startup is pioneering a mesh network of wireless base stations that can transmit high-bandwidth signals across entire neighborhoods at relatively cheap infrastructure installation costs.

It’s a paradigm that caught the eye of investors, with Digital Alpha Advisors, a longtime telecom VC with close ties to Cisco, investing $185 million into the company in equity as well as a debt facility in exchange for revenue share (sort of the hardware version of SaaS securitization). It dubbed the latter an “outcome-based financial structure.” Rick Shrotri and Neil Sheridan from Digital Alpha will join WeLink’s board.