US-based fixed wireless access (FWA) provider Tarana Wireless raked in $50 million in a funding round from Digital Alpha Advisors, part of a plan to expand R&D and deliver growth.

A Tarana Wireless representative told Mobile World Live (MWL) it will use Digital Alpha’s investment to hire new staff across various areas of the business, along with financing areas considered to be strategically important.

Digital Alpha joined a group of investors including Axon Capital, Khosla Ventures and Prime Movers Lab, which pumped $170 million into Tarana Wireless in 2022 in a move which valued the company at more than $1 billion.

At the time, a representative told MWL the company was fully funded and did not anticipate a need for further investment.

It stated it invested more than $400 million into developing its technology over the past decade, leaving its Gigabit 1 (G1) FWA service capable of fibre-rivalling near- and non-line-of-sight connectivity in licensed and unlicensed spectrum.

Tarana Wireless’ representative said more than 270 service providers in 19 countries had deployed the set-up since its launch in 2021.

It uses a range of distributed Massive MIMO processing techniques designed for home broadband and stated it aims to deliver gigabit data rates, though operator customers are currently offering tariffs in the 100Mb/s to 500Mb/s range.