It’s no secret that Scott Moody and Jonathan Gould are on a mission with their team at K4Connect. This afternoon, the duo made good on their plans to secure institutional capital and strategic partnerships to rapidly scale their connected home venture. 

Intel Capital announced an $8 million Series A investment in the Raleigh-based company during Intel‘s annual summit. The resources and partnerships aim to accelerate development of K4Connect’s technology that helps adults live independently. Moody says their integration of hardware and software enables more efficient and effective home automation, in-home healthcare and connectivity while offering senior community staff a dashboard to monitor their residents’ well being. 

The company’s newest investors say the partnership allows for expanded possibilities for how people apply technology in daily life.
“Bringing smarter connections and innovative technologies to new places and underserved users aligns with Intel’s vision for the future of how we live and work across all sectors,” says Doug Davis, senior vice president and general manager of the Internet of Things (IoT) Group at Intel Corporation. 
K4Connect is poised to serve adults with disabilities and customers whose patterns of daily living are changed by the dramatic demographic shift as Baby Boomers age. K4Community, their first product, centralizes software such as messaging and video chat with connected home hardware like thermostats, lighting, and smoke detectors while compiling data to predict illness. 
“There are close to 1.5 billion older adults and people living with disabilities in the world today, a market segment expected to grow to nearly 28 percent of the world’s population by 2050,” said Moody, co-founder and CEO of K4Connect. “That’s an enormous segment of society currently underserved by technology. Our solutions, of which K4Community is just the first, empower those we serve to live simpler, healthier and happier lives.” 
But Moody’s not just playing a numbers game, he’s setting up the chessboard for bigger moves. A look at K4Connect’s cap table reveals evolving partnerships beyond cash. With clear connections to retailers, and now hardware and real estate heavyweights in his vertical, Moody has also aligned the company with leaders at the convergence of trends in IoT, consumer products, and housing.
Intel Capital led the round joined by RGAx, LLC, a subsidiary of Reinsurance Group of America Incorporated, a global provider of life and health-related reinsurance with over $10B in revenue, and Traverse Venture Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based growth equity platform focused on transforming real estate, including senior living communities like the ones where K4Community is already at work. 
Earlier backers gave Moody and Gould a strong vote of confidence. All investors from the company’s $1.9 million seed round from October of last year participated, including Sierra Ventures, Stonehenge Growth Equity, Lowe’s Ventures and Better Ventures. Several funds, including Sierra backed Moody’s previous company, AuthenTec, the public company he founded that Apple acquired for $356 million in 2012. (We talked with Moody about that experience as part of our Founder’s Series.)
“We’re excited about supporting Scott and the team at K4Connect as they work to transform an industry and make a difference in people’s lives, much as they did at AuthenTec,” said Ben Yu, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. 
With the round closed, the team says they intend to focus on product development and accelerating sales. Derek Holt, K4Connect’s president, says the new funding will allow the company to expand the number of pilots and deployments from those already launched in the Mid-Atlantic.
Moody says the focus on the Mid-Atlantic is intentional. “There is a real advantage to having local customers for a startup, since it gives you ready and easy access to those that can help you define your products and build your company,” he says. 
“We feel both a sense of responsibility and urgency to help as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” Holt says. 
For K4Connect, this latest funding represents another step toward that ambition.

“With our first product launched and thoroughly vetted, we are ready to expand and will use this new funding to do just that,” Moody says.

The company will continue to operate from its Triangle headquarters as it continues to build its team and its technology for domestic and international audiences. 
Leadership plans to add to its 25-person headcount with additional key hires in sales, engineering, customer success in the coming months, including the 8 openings posted on their site.