Camera Doorbell Startup Ring Now With ~$100 Million Funding

I keep anxiously checking the Play Store for app updates, really want to try the live video!

I am fascinated to see if Ring can get acquired before this market is commoditized.

Ring could have become a solid niche high-end provider but now they really need to get an acquisition as that's too much investment to build long term company given the hardware competitors around.

I absolutely think other companies can, and will. My point is that as of now they appear to be taking pretty firm control of the segment, and opportunities exist. I am not saying they will, but they could. I know it's outside the realm of this site, but I would point to Sonos as an example. There have been scads of competitors in the home audio streaming realm but Sonos dominated by producing a reliable product with great features which they constantly upgraded and expanded.

How did you get to this:

"Assuming a 50% gross margin, Ring would have to sell roughly 9,000,000 doorbells in order to make the kind of returns investors commonly expect."

I would have thought:

Assume a 5x return for investors => $1B valuation.

$250 MSRP => $125 into channel.

2.4M units/year would give them $300M revenue. Which is in ballpark of $1B valuation.

Still a lot of doorbells!

I think investor viewpoint on a company like that could include the following things:

- Nest has gotten to (I think) few million units/yr. Similar priced product, against entrenched competitors (Honeywell), and they got a very good valuation. So a proof point on this type of path.

- There is a battle for the home "platform" right now, and a wave of residential applications in general, and all toeholds are valuable. Lots of change happening, in Residential, being around change is usually good from (early stage) investment standpoint (compare to "Security" market, that is more stable/mature). I dont know if Ring is a "platform" play or not.

- 8-10x return is nice, but in some situations where there is likelier earlier exit, most people will take less.

- a good team (and maybe good core tech) can move with the market. So likely investors would be judging company not only on this initial product. In fact most investors will judge early-ish stage companies based on (1) team, (2) vision and market, and (3) products/tech (in that order). This is based on notion that a good team can find a new market and build new tech.

I received notice of Live Video added to the first generation Ring today.

Like several mentioned, right now the feature is only supported on hardwired units. Here are a few screenshots from the app:

Main dashboard, note 'Live View' button:

Buffering is a bit slower than normal, bringing up Live View vs. Recordings:

Also Live View resolution appears lower than typical 720p. Framerate looks normal, but image is overall lower quality than normal:

Overall, for a lacking feature that was a big gap, Ring has successfully filled it with "Live View".

The image is not great, even a simple dedicated surveillance system will not have difficulty outperforming it, but in a combo intercom/doorbell and using an app that users already have downloaded and are using, this is a nice feature.

On a related note, we will contrast the 1st gen Ring with the 2nd gen Ring Pro in our upcoming test. Live view performance will be a part of that test.