Ring comes to Philadelphia, inheriting Zonoff's former employees

Tom Paine

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Ring is coming to Philadelphia, by inheriting most of the 80 or so employees of Malvern-based Zonoff who where being let go, reports Stacey Higginbotham on her site, STACEY on IoT .

Apparently, Zonoff was attempting to complete a deal in which it would be acquired by Honeywell, but that fell through. Higginbotham says the relationship between Zonoff and its largest strategic investor, ADT, had frayed due to ADT's changing priorities after being taken private by Apollo Group last year.

Ring, based in Santa Monica and known for its ubiquitous doorbell video ads, has raised $209 million, including $109 million in January. Zonoff raised $35.8 million.

Zonoff Founder & CEO Mike Harris is also onboard with Ring, Higginbotham reports, and Ring will be looking for new offices in the Philadelphia area. All Zonoff employees received job offers from Ring.

Ring's sales had been to this point driven primarily by a single product, while building market acceptance for a broader platform, as Zonoff tried to do, proved to be much more difficult.

No word on if or how Zonoff's installed base will be supported. I checked out Zonoff's website and found crickets - no news on this.

There is also the issue of Zonoff's IP assets. Unless other arrangements have been made, those are presumably the investor's to dispose of.

I hadn't realized that First Round was in Ring's Series A ($15.5M Pre-Money Valuation).