Telenor Connexion Becomes a Joint Venture in the Latest IoT Private Equity Matchup

In May 2026, the Telenor Group of telecommunications companies and private equity company Verdane agreed to establish joint ownership of Telenor Connexion, Telenor’s Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity subsidiary. Telenor does not wish to exit the IoT market, but to leverage the financial resources of Verdane, alongside Verdane’s experience in helping industrial technology companies achieve greater scale. The terms of the agreement are expected to ultimately value Telenor Connexion at SEK5.3 billion, or approximately US$574 million. This is equivalent to 4X the turnover of the Telenor IoT brand that Telenor Connexion operates under during its 2025 financial year. Each partner will invest SEK2 billion (US$16 million) in Telenor Connexion’s long-term growth.

Telenor consequently spreads its risk, while still benefiting from both the opportunity that the IoT offers, and the incremental specialist insight that an invested third party will provide. Telenor will receive a cash return for its decades of effort in the IoT, retaining it  as a strategic growth area, but without taking full financial and decision-making responsibility for the outcome hereon. Verdane benefits from this chance to scale-up one of the longest-standing and trusted brands in IoT connectivity. Connexion’s installed base grew at a notably steady Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14% in the 10 years up to mid-2025 and its consequent re-imagining. It is an arrangement intended for the benefit of all, with Connexion finding itself in a market and ownership position akin to that of a growth-phase startup.

Telenor Connexion broke new ground, being the first IoT service provider and full Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) to dedicate itself to serving the global market for connectivity only, i.e., to focus on providing the best possible connectivity, and nothing else. This was despite the fact that from the earliest days of the IoT, it was known that it had an average revenue per connection that was already low compared to consumer Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and was already only destined to continue to commoditize. For years, it was a passion project of wireless carriers, Connexion until now having been a fully-owned subsidiary of the Telenor Group, to ascend the value chain and prove it could do more than just connectivity—as if to admit that connectivity alone reduced a carrier’s role to that of a dumb utility.

However, the truth is that the most powerful thing any supply-side IoT player can achieve is horizontal applicability—the ability to touch every possible use case, for maximum opportunity. This strategy does rely on admitting that the IoT becomes a volume-only play for said supplier, and that margin will not be the source of financial success. That is not the path normally taken by IoT MVNOs. Most IoT MVNOs wholesale connectivity from spectrum-owning carriers, as a component to use to build value-added services on top of, and not as a resale opportunity per se. But Telenor Connexion, like Vodafone IoT, is not a traditional MVNO; both are extensions of multinational carrier groups and are natively optimized to specialize in connectivity.

Vodafone IoT followed in Telenor Connexion’s footsteps when it became an independent subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, dedicated just to IoT connectivity. Now Telenor Connexion is following in Vodafone IoT’s footsteps, having consolidated all of Telenor’s IoT assets into one organization, spinning it out as a Joint Venture (JV), and opening it up to external investment to fund future growth independently of the parent carrier’s broader (and consumer-centric) goals. The one difference being that, while Vodafone IoT is still offering the sale of up to 49% of its equity to a third party/third parties, Telenor Connexion has already found its partner here in Verdane. Verdane will own 50% of Telenor Connexion, with the Telenor Group retaining the remaining 50%.

The JV is the final step in a sequence of moves made since late 2025, designed to put Telenor Connexion on an independent footing and with maximal functional capability. In November 2025, the Telenor Group transferred the IoT activities of its national operating companies in Norway and Finland to Telenor Connexion, to operate under the unified brand of “Telenor IoT.” Previously, Telenor Connexion served international connectivity only, not domestic, and this change greatly boosted the size and value of Connexion’s business. In mid-2025 Telenor Connexion had an 18.5 million strong installed base, but at year end, after the consolidation, it served 30 million IoT connections, and a turnover for 2025 of SEK1.3 billion, or approximately US$133 million.

In February 2026, Telenor IoT announced that the commercial availability of SGP.32 Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards would begin in April, and in March, it launched its Global Access Point Name (APN) service. Carriers were slow to actively promote the remote provisioning specification known as “embedded SIM (eSIM),” with MVNOs being its earliest champions. But today, all serious IoT service providers need to offer eSIM, and the hype around SGP.32 specifically makes it a must-have technology to prove a company’s competitiveness. Meanwhile, the Global APN  simplifies IoT device configuration, allowing dynamic connection to local Points of Presence (PoPs), as well as automatic transfer between PoPs without reconfiguration. This makes it easier to establish and maintain international networks of IoT devices.

Telenor had been priming Connexion for its new position, the injection of private equity into long-standing companies becoming a trend in the IoT. Vodafone IoT remains open to the purchase of a minority stake of its business, while module vendor Telit Cinterion was taken private by DBAY Advisors Limited back in 2021, and private equity is a possible option for Semtech Corporation’s imminent sale of the Sierra Wireless module brand. Telenor Connexion will retain the telecommunications heritage and network resources of its original national incumbent parent; combining it with new growth capital, and the keen strategic eye of a specialist in technology company growth; Verdane stating that, “Telenor Connexion is perfectly positioned in a well-established structural growth market that will benefit from the increasing adoption of AI through exposure to connected devices in data-intensive industries.”