INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Boris Renski, the co-founder of Mirantis, one of the earliest and best-funded players in the OpenStack space a few years ago (which then
mostly pivoted to Kubernetes and DevOps), has left his role as CMO to focus his efforts on a new startup: FreedomFi
The new company brings together open-source hardware and software to give enterprises a new way to leverage the newly opened 3.5 GHz band
the company recently hit a milestone when it used its prototype stack to send messages across its private network over a distance of around
2.7 miles.Mirantis itself worked on bringing Magma, a Facebook-developed open-source tool for powering some of the features needed for
building access networks, into production
FreedomFi is also working with the OpenAirInterface consortium, which aims to create an ecosystem for open-source software and hardware
development around wireless innovation
Most, if not all, of the technology the company will develop over time will also be open source, as well.Renski, of course, gets to leverage
his existing connections in the enterprise and telco industry with this new venture, but he also told me that he plans to leverage the
then kind of gradually evolving into more of a leveraged business model with a subscription offering around OpenStack and then MCP and now
But the key was to be very kind of customer-centric, go get some customer wins first, give customers a services-centric offering that gets
standards of a telco).Renski and his team started the project about two months ago and for now, it remains self-funded
But the company already has five pilots lined up, including one with a company that produces large-scale events and another with a large
real estate owner, and with some of the tech falling in place, Renski seems optimistic that this is a project worth focusing on
There are still some hurdles to overcome and Renski tells me the team is learning new things every day
The hardware, for example, remains hard to source and the software stack remains in flux
