Jolla, a Smartphone OS maker said it has secured a new source of funding, as a result of growing interest in licensing its Sailfish smartphone operating system.
The statement is coming a month after the Finnish company filed for debt restructuring and suspended a large number of staff due to a delayed funding round.
“A very important part in a start-up’s journey is going through death valleys. Most start-ups need great survival skills and determination and innovative solutions to succeed in the long run,” Jolla chairman, Antti Saarnio said in a statement.
“Jolla has now successfully completed its investment round and is ready to continue to provide a true mobile OS alternative to the world.
“This latest death valley was the most difficult one but proved that highly motivated teams can win even when faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges,” he said.
Jolla was formed in 2012 by former Nokia engineers who worked on the company’s MeeGo smartphone platform.
The company developed the Sailfish OS and its own devices; however, in July it spun off the hardware division, opting to focus instead on licensing Sailfish to device makers.
It signed up its first partner in the shape of Indian electronics maker Intex, which aimed to release a phone this year.
However, in November it appeared to have run aground financially, filing for debt restructuring in Finland in order to buy it some time to secure a new source of funding.
The outlook for Jolla did not look promising, especially when another player, Mozilla, opted to kill off its own fledgling smartphone platform, Firefox OS, in early December.
“The mobile OS landscape is currently going through a very interesting phase. While many OS projects are fading, the need for alternative OS’s is strong,” Saarnio insisted.
Jolla said it is receiving growing interest from industrial partners in licensing Sailfish, particularly from vendors developing security and privacy-focused devices.
“Without personal data privacy and security, it is hard to see that people, companies and governments could trust all their business, financial and personal information on mobile,” Saarnio said. “We stand firm in the belief that the world needs an alternative mobile OS,” Saarnio added.