SAMSARA

Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket previously co-founded Meraki, a wireless networking company they sold to Cisco for $1.2 billion in 2012. After that exit, they noticed that while office buildings were getting smart with networked devices, the physical operations world — trucking, manufacturing, construction, logistics — was still operating blind.

No data, no visibility, no software. They founded Samsara in 2015 to build the connected operations platform for the physical economy.

The Meraki playbook — simple hardware, great software, cloud-native — transferred perfectly.

Samsara sells IoT (Internet of Things) hardware and a cloud-based software platform that helps companies manage their physical operations. They sell sensors, GPS trackers, dashcams, and environmental monitors that attach to vehicles, equipment, and facilities.

All data flows into a single cloud platform where managers can track everything in real time — vehicle locations, driver safety, fuel usage, temperature in a cold storage facility, equipment hours. Revenue is primarily recurring SaaS subscriptions plus hardware sales.

Vehicle Gateway (GPS + telematics), AI Dash Cams (safety + coaching), Environmental Monitors (temperature/humidity), Site Visibility (cameras), Connected Operations Cloud (unified platform)

Land and expand within existing customers — a trucking company that starts with GPS tracking eventually adds dashcams, then driver safety coaching, then fuel analytics. Expand into new verticals: construction, oil and gas, food and beverage, government.

International expansion in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Competing with legacy fleet management companies (Omnitracs, Geotab, Trimble) that have decades-long relationships with large fleets. Samsara also faces the classic hardware-software challenge: getting customers to install physical devices requires a sales motion that pure SaaS companies do not have to deal with.

Expansion beyond fleet management into industrial and construction operations means selling to entirely different buyer personas.

Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, public market investors post-IPO