Jaap Groot | LPWAN Podcast | Ignion | Momenta

Jaap has extensive expertise in IoT communications, having worked at Qualcomm and MiX Telematics before joining Sigfox as the company's first Head of Sales. He went on to become Vice-Chair of the LoRa Alliance and VP of Business Development for the LoRa team at Semtech. Jaap joined Fractus Antenna in mid-2020 and helped the firm rebrand as Ignion.

Jaap was previously featured in Episode #108 of our podcast, "The Future of LPWAN." He spoke about his digital thread and his contentious projections for LPWAN's future. Jaap also discussed Covid-19's emphasis on edge computing, as well as other promising companies in the field.

Discussion Points:

• Let's start with the LPWAN space, and specifically the recent news that Sigfox has filed for Chapter 11 and is now going through an accelerated auction of the company’s assets. Did this surprise you?
• In their statement, Sigfox blamed Covid-19 for poor device sales and difficult IoT market circumstances. Contrary to popular belief, remote asset management is in high demand among our 48 portfolio firms. Have you seen their alleged IoT challenges?
• In 2013, you led the sales section of Sigfox. What would you alter if you could go back in time and give Sigfox a better chance?
• Unlike the rest of the world, Silicon Valley treats failure with a small ‘f'. In this example, the lessons learned may be quite helpful if applied to future leadership situations. Sigfox was heralded as an example of French and even European tech. Do you see any learnings for France or Europe, given the situation?
• What has happened with your virtual antenna and value proposition since then?
• You've also made some great traction with your cloud-based design capabilities. Can you say a bit more about that?
• Ignion has shipped over 30 million antennas. Given this vantage point, you could be viewed as a bit of a forward-looking indicator for LPWAN or other protocol adoption. What trends are you seeing relative to this data?
• You have estimated an 80/20 split with 80% in favor of licensed spectrum designs versus unlicensed spectrum ones. To what do you attribute this strong bias?
• Putting your prognosticator hat on, where would you predict this trend going, especially considering the sale of Sigfox?
• Any hint about what we can expect from Ignion over the next year?