Intel Invests in WisairIntel Invests in Wisair

Intel Digital Home Fund joins Wisair's $15.7M Series B round of funding led by Apax Partners' Funds

April 21, 2004

2 Min Read

BARCELONA, Spain -- Today at theIntel Developer Forum (IDF), Wisair, a leading Ultra Wide Band (UWB) chipsets andsolutions company, announced that the Intel Digital Home Fund has joined its series Bfunding round, which was $15.7 million and led by Apax Partners’ Funds. Wisair earlierannounced this round of funding, which included Vertex, RAD Ventures, Bynet Ventures,Tamar Ventures, and RAD and Bynet founders, Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel and NTTLeasing.

The investment by the Intel Digital Home Fund is part of its $200 million commitment toinvest in hardware and software companies whose products help accelerate developmentof key technologies and content which enhance and simplify the digital home experience.

Wisair develops and markets high performance wireless communication chipset solutions,based on UWB (Ultra Wide Band) technology. Wisair is a key contributor for the Multi-Band OFDM Alliance (MBOA) specification and has recently introduced anddemonstrated the industry’s first MB-OFDM compliant chip UB501 as part of itsUBLink™ chipset solution. UBLink chipset targets Consumer Electronics, PC andMobile products and enables the implementation of low cost, low power, and high bitratecommunication modules and system solutions for the fast emerging home/officeconnectivity market. Wisair is also as a contributing member to the IEEE 802.15.3astandard process and the Wireless USB Promoter Group. Intel demonstrated the WirelessUSB technology and applications using Wisair Evaluation Toolkit during the Spring IDFin February and at Japan IDF.

“The Digital Home initiative represents a significant opportunity for UWB technology”said Mr. Zohar Zisapel, Chairman of Wisair’s Board. “Today’s current wireless schemesare not capable of very high speed multimedia communication with quality-of-serviceand bulk-transfer of very large content data. The Intel Digital Home Fund’s investment inWisair will help stimulate the growth of UWB technology and its ecosystem, and enabledevelopment of solutions meeting the industry’s expected price and performance points”Zisapel continued.

"UWB technology will play a key role in bringing high speed wireless networks in thehome to fruition,” said Curt Nichols, Intel Capital vice president. “The Intel DigitalHome Fund is investing in UWB companies, like Wisair, to accelerate the ecosystemand the availability of products that will allow consumers to more easily access digitalcontent throughout the home and office."

Intel Capital

Wisair Ltd.

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