Electronic Technology Company Essential Raises $300 Million

Essential completed $300 million in financing. Playground Global, Redpoint Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Tencent Holdings and Foxconn Technology Group participated in the funding.

Founded by Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, Essential is a mobile and home devices company focused on creating consumer technology products for the 21st century. The company has created a series of electronics products that aim to be highly functional and made with the highest level of craftsmanship. The Essential Phone is made using titanium and ceramic, has an edge-to-edge display and captures even low-light images with the thinnest dual camera system ever built for a phone. Essential is also developing a home assistant device that has all the functions of any A.I. device like Alexa, and also has an ambient round surface that displays relevant contextual information.

The company revealed that the new financing round created a separate class of shares with more voting rights, suggesting, according to Equidate’s analysis, that Playground Global has considerable control over Essential.