US spectrum sharing company Federated Wireless raised $13.7 million to fuel expansion of its management services, outlining plans to use the funds to strengthen its 3.5GHz products and extend them into the 6GHz band.

CEO Iyad Tarazi told Mobile World Live the money will enable further development of management and support platforms for a connectivity-as-a-service product covering the 3.5GHz band it recently launched alongside Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. He added it will also fund internal resources and training to ensure the company is prepared to expand deployments, and provide working capital to help grow its partner ecosystem.

Improvements made to the 3.5GHz product will be recycled in a version of the platform the company eventually plans to release for the 6GHz band, Tarazi said. US regulator the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on 23 April on new rules which would open the entire band for unlicensed use.

Investment companies Allied Minds and Pennant Investors led the funding round, which took the total raised since 2016 to $128.7 million.

The move to bolster investment in its 3.5GHz products reflects a surge in demand, particularly for IoT services, which Tarazi said had not wavered despite the ongoing Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

He noted the current environment is actually “creating the need for more automation, more automated warehousing, more automation in retail”.

“We feel fortunate that we’re part of an industry that is in high demand right now.”