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Cyanogen completes $80 million round of Series C financing

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Cyanogen has announced the completion of an $80 million round of Series C financing. 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.

Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen said:

“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,”.

“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 makes an open firmware based on Android that allows users to add more features and customization to their phones. Chinese startup OnePlus, which released the popular One smartphone last year, ships its device with Cyanogen pre-loaded.

But now Cyanogen wants to go beyond creating a “forked” version of Android by creating a full-blown operating system that can compete with Android and iOS. McMaster envisions a platform that’s even more open than Android: While existing apps sit on top of Android and iOS, McMaster wants to create an operating system in which services are actually tied into the core operating system.

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