MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Qualtré Inc., a leading provider of feature rich and high performance inertial sensors for cutting edge consumer and industrial applications, announced the closing of a $10M round of financing. The new funding will enable the company to launch multiple products targeting both high-volume consumer and industrial applications. These products are based on the company’s highly differentiated BAW gyroscope architecture, which underscores the versatility of the company’s core technology. The round consists of equity financing from Matrix Partners and Pilot House Ventures, as well as debt financing from Eastward Capital Partners.
“We are seeing tremendous interest from both top tier customers as well as strategic partners,” explained Edgar Masri, CEO of Qualtré. “We attribute this to the fact that people recognize the strengths of our fundamental technology, and they also believe that our differentiated BAW technology is much safer in terms of intellectual property rights and long-term supply assurance than the tuning fork gyros implemented by other companies. We believe that we have the only technology which can provide the performance scaling and environmental robustness needed for applications ranging from consumer to high-end IMU’s. We will use this funding round to develop products for key applications which can benefit from the combination of robustness, performance, and cost-optimization which our products will provide.”
MEMS gyroscopes are experiencing the same rapid growth rate that MEMS accelerometers experienced a few years ago, driven by growing adoption in products ranging from mobile handsets to gaming remotes to cameras to electronics stability control systems. Industry analysts estimate that the market for gyro sensors will grow to $1.5B in consumer electronics application alone by the year 2015.
“We are excited to see customers and partners accelerate their interest in Qualtré’s BAW technology,” said Stan Reiss, a General Partner with Matrix Partners. “We believe that by developing multiple products which use the same design building blocks, and at the same time address the needs of specific applications and markets, the company is delivering maximum value to its customers.”
About Qualtré, Inc.
Founded in 2008, Qualtré is a venture-backed company commercializing the next generation of solid-state silicon MEMS motion sensor solutions for cutting edge consumer and industrial applications by leveraging fundamentally differentiated technologies.
The company’s product development efforts build upon years of research conducted by its founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Farrokh Ayazi, at Georgia Tech's renowned Integrated MEMS Laboratory. The company is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts. More information can be found at www.qualtre.com.
About Matrix Partners
Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry’s top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners has offices in Waltham, MA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Mumbai, India; and Beijing and Shanghai, China. The firm has been fortunate to have invested in game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Apple Computer, Sandisk, Veritas, Sycamore Networks, Phone.com, Starent Networks, JBoss and Xilinx. www.matrixpartners.com
About Pilot House Ventures
Pilot House Ventures is a Boston, Massachusetts-based venture capital firm that invests in promising early stage technology companies, including enterprise software, network infrastructure, internet, and communications companies. The company looks for outstanding entrepreneurs who are building companies with high growth potential that will be true partners throughout the lifecycle of the company. Pilot House Ventures' investment team leverages its deep operational, technical and industry experience to help entrepreneurs build successful companies. Pilot House operates with a team approach to help their portfolio companies be successful, with multiple members of the team involved in advising all portfolio companies on strategic decisions to drive growth. The Pilot House Ventures team also taps into its extensive networks to support its portfolio companies with resources for customer acquisition, business development, partnerships, marketing strategy, technology development and management and Board development. www.pilothouseventures.com
About Eastward Capital Partners
Eastward Capital Partners is a West Newton, Massachusetts based venture debt provider, which provides flexible equity sensitive solutions to companies in the Information Technology, Communications, Alternative Energy and Healthcare sectors. Having completed investments in over 100 companies in the previous 20 years, Eastward is among the most experienced providers of venture debt in the industry. www.eastwardcp.com