Alereon closes $31.5 million Series A financing - Business - Brief Article

Mobile Internet, The, Jan, 2004

Alereon, a Ultra Wideband (UWB) semiconductor company producing chipsets for the personal area networking (PAN) market, announced it has received $31.5 million in the first round of its Series A financing. Alereon will use the proceeds to complete development of its UWB chipset solution, bring its product to market, secure design wins, and achieve initial revenue. The Series A round was led by Austin Ventures with participation by Pharos Capital, Centennial Ventures, Kinetic Ventures, eCentury Capital, Duchossois Technology Partners, PTV Sciences and other investors. The company expects to close on a small amount of additional funding in early 2004 to complete its Series A financing round.

Launched in September 2003, Alereon is a fabless semiconductor company producing chipsets for high-speed connectivity among personal computers and peripherals, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. The company's first product will cost-effectively connect consumers' televisions, PCs, camcorders, digital cameras, printers and other peripheral devices, DVDs and MP3 players to one another at hundreds of megabits per second using very little power. Alereon's chipset will function as a wireless USB or IEEE 1394 connection, replacing the cables that connect personal computing and consumer electronics devices together today.

Alereon is currently demonstrating its Media Access Controller solution, which is designed to enable mesh networking. The company is working with leaders in both the consumer electronics and personal computing industries to deliver a complete UWB solution that is low power, high performance and integrates easily into customers' systems. The company expects to be shipping MBOA-compliant chipsets to customers by the end of 2004.