“Cellphone plans are expensive. The average person spends about $80 per month on data, according to price comparison engine Flipsy, which amounts to around $57,600 over 60 years. Unsurprisingly, an estimated 53% of young adults aged 20-30 opt to stick with a parent’s subscription rather than shell out for a pricey single line.

That’s why Amir Haleem, Napster co-creator Shawn Fanning, and baby monitor startup Sproutling founder Chris Bruce set out to create an alternative. The San Francisco company they founded together in 2013 — Helium — is developing a fee-free peer-to-peer network for internet of things (IoT) devices, and it today announced the closure of a funding round that’ll set the stage for said network’s expansion.”

Read the full article on VentureBeat here.