Motia Scores With Intel

802.11 chipset startup Motia has secured a high-profile customer win with industry giant Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), following its $12 million cash injection announced today (see Motia Scores $12M).

The Intel Communications Fund is listed as one of the investors in Motia, and its parent company looks set to join Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and Hawking Technologies Inc. as a customer of the startup’s “smart antenna” technology (see Moto Meets Motia and Motia Wins Hawking Deal).

“Intel will be a major customer of ours,” Motia’s president and CEO, Paul Sun, tells Unstrung. “They will be endorsing our smart antenna technology... It’s also part of their plan to use Motia’s smart antenna technology in their WiMax applications.”

Motia claims its technology can extend the 200- to 300-foot range of 802.11 signals by up to three times. The firm’s Javelin antenna, for example, works by chopping the radio transmission from a standard wireless LAN chipset into four and then combining the results to get a more accurate reading of the wireless environment than standard RF methods (see Motia Launches Javelin and Smart Antennas Draw a Crowd).

According to Sun, Motia has to date raised “about $20 million” in funding and no further investment is planned. “This round should take us to cashflow positive.”

Other investors include Prism Venture Partners, Axiom Venture Partners, Carrot Capital, and Kodiak Venture Partners.

— Justin Springham, Senior Editor, Europe, Unstrung