Today, 5G companies Firecell and Accelleran announced their merger with the goal of creating a complete private 5G solution for industrial autonomy, critical infrastructure, and defense communications.
Redaksiya reports that this merger is supported by a €7.9 million investment round, led by existing investors Matterwave Ventures, BPI France, Qbic, and Cogito Capital Partners. The merger combines Firecell's core network and NMS (Network Management System) with Accelleran's programmable RAN, management, and AI capabilities into a pre-integrated sovereign private 5G solution. The company's offering targets ports, factories, defense installations, and logistics facilities where connectivity is critical for operations.
The industrial sector is moving from equipment monitoring to fully autonomous operations. Robotic arms, AGVs, drones, and remotely operated machines require deterministic connectivity – for example, a dropped connection can halt production and expose workers to safety risks. Private 5G solves this, but deploying it today typically means assembling components from multiple vendors, each with its own release cycle, support path, and integration requirements. Firecell's new platform provides: Global spectrum coverage: support for all FDD and TDD bands, ensuring seamless deployments worldwide. High-performance connectivity: sub-millisecond latency, supporting thousands of concurrent IoT devices with dedicated network slicing and Voice over NR and mission-critical push-to-talk capabilities. AI-driven network intelligence: real-time optimization of network capacity and energy via programmable xApps and rApps intelligent controllers 100 percent. European-manufactured software: fully on-premise deployment, ensuring complete data autonomy and sovereignty for defense and critical infrastructure.
The combined company will operate under the Firecell name and brand, with Claude Seyrat appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), doubling down on its engineering and commercial operations, with teams in France, Belgium, the UK, Germany, and Poland, and deployments across Europe, the United States, and Asia. Claude Seyrat, CEO of Firecell, said, “Industrial operations are deploying robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles at scale and they need predictable connectivity, not a patchwork of vendors. As private 5G projects evolve towards applications in numerous sectors – coverage is small but growing in number – system integrators need a single reference solution they can standardize on. This merger gives them exactly that: an efficient, hardware-agnostic offering so they can focus on delivering high-value applications and ROI to their customers, not on integration work.” Robert Gallenberg, Partner at Matterwave Ventures, stated, “We are witnessing rapidly growing private 5G demand in ports, airports, mines, defense installations, and utilities. This merger creates a trusted European alternative – a complete, sovereign platform that system integrators can build private 5G experiences on. The single stack approach, combined scale, and presence in five countries position Firecell as a future European leader in this market.”
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including shareholder approvals, regulatory clearances, and the signing of definitive agreements. Completion is expected to be finalized by the end of Q1 2026.