According to Culpan, Foxconn’s FIH Mobile has invested a $3 million investment in Essential. Their $3 million investment in the high-end startup translates to around 0.25 per cent of the company. As The Verge points out, Essential was valued at $997 million in July. The fresh investment would value the firm at $1.2 billion.Andy Rubin’s Essential is now valued at over a billion dollars without even shipping a single unit of the bezel-less smartphone. The news comes from Tim Culpan, a columnist with Bloomberg.
Despite being valued at over a billion dollar, Essential is still waiting to ship its first smartphone, which was revealed back in May this year. The founder of Android, Andy Rubin, is the force behind Essential. The startup is working on the smartphone and a slew of other connected devices.
The company’s first smartphone, the “Essential Phone Ph-1”, is already available for pre-order for $699. The phone offers the high-end specifications you’d expect from a flagship device. It has an edge-to-edge display that takes up almost the entire front of the device. It is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor and a dual-camera setup on the back. Essential says the device has “one of the world’s best phone cameras”. Essential Phone PH-1 is made out of Titanium, instead of aluminium.
The premium smartphone is modular in nature, meaning one can enhance the usage of the device with a number of accessories. The company says it will be selling a $50 360-degree camera accessory, which snaps onto the phone with magnets.
Over the past few weeks, Essential has been in the news for various reasons. The Essential phone was supposed to release in June in the US, but it missed that date. The company even lost a number of high-level executives.
Andy Rubin recently confirmed (via The Verge) that the phone will start shipping “in a few weeks”. That means the device should be made available sometime in August.
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