Staccato Communications Closes $18 Million in Third Round Venture Capital Financing7 January 2006
Staccato
Communications, an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless technology pioneer and
Certified Wireless USB leader today announced $18 million in Series C
funding. The investment, which came from existing, long-term investors,
was co-led by Intel Capital's Digital Home Fund and Vision Capital, with
full participation from existing investors Allegis Capital, Bay Partners,
Charles River Ventures and Interwest Partners.
"The coming era of UWB and Wireless USB promises greater ease of use and
simplicity for connecting PC platforms, traditional PC peripherals, mobile
communications platforms and consumer electronic devices, such as digital
camera and personal media players," said Scott Darling, vice president of
Intel Capital. "We look forward to our continued involvement with Staccato
to bring Wireless USB to market in 2006."
Dominique Pitteloud of Vision Capital, also a co-lead in the investment,
said, "Every now and then forces align and a company earns an early
advantage in an emerging space of great promise. Staccato owns these
advantages in UWB and we are pleased to have co-led this investment round
with Intel Capital."
"With today's announcement of our Ripcord family of Certified Wireless USB
solutions, Staccato is well positioned to take a significant share of the
emerging UWB market. This investment allows us to further strengthen
Staccato's existing business as we begin commercialization, while expanding
our presence to support the deployment of commercial Certified Wireless USB
products worldwide," said Rick Kornfeld, president and CEO of Staccato
Communications. He further added, "Intel's support for our efforts has
been invaluable, and with recent positive developments on UWB regulatory
and standards matters in Europe, Vision's extensive network there has given
Staccato unique access to customer and partner prospect throughout the
region."
Demonstrations of Staccato's Ripcord Wireless USB products will begin today
at CES Unveiled (Venetian Bellini Ballroom, Sands Expo and Convention
Center, Table 25), and at the WiMedia TechZone (LV Convention Center Hall
1, Booth 7923) and Pure Wireless (Flamingo Hotel, Twilight Room) from
January 5-8, 2006.
Products and Availability
The Ripcord family of products includes Host Wire Adapter (HWA), Device
Wire Adapter (DWA), Native SDIO and PHY (physical layer)-only solutions.
In addition, Staccato offers a Ripcord Development Kit (DVK), three
ready-for-production system designs (external plug in dongles, internal
minicard adapters and embedded device modules) and support tools. Samples
are available now with product shipments scheduled for mid-2006. Staccato
reference designs will be available at the end of the first quarter of
2006. For more product information, please call +1(858) 812-1000 or send
email to sales@staccatocommunications.com.
About Intel Capital
With an overall strategy to enable innovation, Intel Capital seeks out and
invests in promising technology companies worldwide. We focus on both
established and new technologies that help to develop industry standard
solutions, drive global Internet growth, facilitate new usage models, and
advance the computing and communications platforms.
As part of Intel Corporation, Intel Capital calls on some of its best and
brightest to evaluate prospective investments, offer business and
technology guidance to our portfolio companies, and provide unrivaled
access to the latest developments in the industry. We are among the largest
venture capital entities in the world with offices in established and
emerging markets around the world.
Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than U.S. $4 billion in
approximately 1,000 companies in more than 30 countries. In that time,
about 160 portfolio companies have been acquired by other companies and
another 150 have gone public on various exchanges around the world. Last
year alone, Intel Capital invested more than U.S. $130 million in about 110
deals with approximately 40 percent of its investments made outside the
United States.
About Vision Capital
Vision Capital (www.visioncap.com) is a Trans-Atlantic fund providing
growth capital for leading technology companies. Vision invests in
promising European and US technology companies and then takes an active,
hands-on approach in expanding these businesses across the Atlantic.
About Allegis Capital
Allegis Capital focuses on investments in early stage information
technology investments in California. Allegis has raised $500 million in
capital and is a leader in working with major corporations to create
strategic advantage for its investors and portfolio companies. Its 33
corporate partners include A&E Networks, BestBuy, Boeing, Comcast, Dow
Jones & Co., Eastman Chemical, Fujitsu, General Electric, Hearst, Honda,
Motorola, Rogers Communications, Siemens, Societe Generale, Sun
Microsystems and other multinational companies. Allegis Capital (
www.allegiscapital.com ) maintains offices in Palo Alto and Santa Monica,
Calif.
About Bay Partners
Bay Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm with over $1 billion in
capital under active management. Since 1976, Bay Partners has invested in
more than 200 infrastructure technology companies. The firm focuses its
investments in wireline, wireless, and enterprise services, software,
equipment, and components/semi-conductors. Examples of Bay's portfolio
companies include Brocade Communications, Digital Island, Informatica,
Exodus Communications, SonicWALL, and WebLogic/BEA Systems. For more
information, visit www.baypartners.com.
About Charles River Ventures
Founded in 1970, Charles River Ventures (CRV) is one of the nation's oldest
and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with approximately
$1.6 billion under management. CRV is dedicated to helping exceptional
entrepreneurs turn their ideas into the next category leaders in the data
communications and software and services sectors. Over the past 10 years,
CRV funds have been ranked among the industry's top performers. This
superior investment record includes leading companies such as Cascade,
Chipcom, CIENA, iBasis, Sonus Networks, SpeechWorks International and
Vignette. CRV has offices in Boston, MA and Menlo Park, CA. For more
information visit www.crv.com.
About InterWest Partners
InterWest Partners (www.interwest.com), founded in 1979, is a leading
diversified venture capital firm focused on building long-term
relationships with entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. Currently
investing its ninth fund, IW IX, a $600 million fund, InterWest has more
than $2 billion of capital raised since inception. InterWest has 16
investing partners in Menlo Park, CA and Dallas, TX, who bring together
deep domain knowledge in life sciences and information technology. The
firm's investments in information technology include CIENA (CIEN), Copper
Mountain Networks (CMTN), Crystal Semiconductor (acquired by Cirrus Logic,
CRUS), Cyrix (CYRX; acquired by National Semiconductor (NSM), Lightera
(acquired by CIENA), PlaceWare (acquired by Microsoft, MSFT), SiTera
(acquired by Vitesse, VTSS), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Stratacom (STRM;
acquired by Cisco, CSCO) and Xilinx (XLNX). For more information visit
www.interwest.com.
About Staccato Communications
Based in San Diego, Calif., Staccato Communications is an Ultra-Wideband
(UWB) technology pioneer with applications expertise in Certified Wireless
USB, Bluetooth and Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity. The fabless
semiconductor company serves the personal computing, consumer electronics
and mobile phone industries with small form factor, single-chip, all-CMOS
wireless solutions. Staccato's WiMedia-based offerings include PHY, MAC,
drivers, application software, development kits and reference designs. For
more information, please visit www.staccatocommunications.com.
Contact:
Julie Cunningham
Staccato Communications
+1 858-812-1060
At CES: +1 213-276-1999
juliec@staccatocommunications
CES Booth # 7923
SOURCE: Staccato Communications
Source: marketwire
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