Amimon
Herzlia, Israel-based Amimon makes semiconductor chips that serve as the brains of wireless home networking equipment, which transfers data at high speeds from one part of a home to another. With the networking gear, consumers can transfer a high-definition video (with a 1080p resolution) from their PC to a TV in another room. Amimon transfers data without compressing it, since compression can lead to errors. Instead, it prioritizes the video data it transfers based on what is significant, such as only transferring the elements that are in motion in a video.
In the future, that networking equipment can take a video from a smartphone and transfer it to a big screen TV. That's why the company has raised the new round of money. Amimon creates chip sets that use its Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) networking standard, which competes with other rivals such as the Wireless HD technology developed by SiBEAM. Other rivals include Cavium Networks and Intel; the latter is promoting the WiDi technology.
Amimon is in a race to establish its standard against the rivals, who all have varying degrees of data transfer speed. Amimon’s second-generation technology operates in the 5-gigahertz band, transmits data at 3 gigabits per second, and has a range of about 100 feet. It can pierce through walls and is very responsive (less than 1 millisecond delays).
Amimon has sold hundreds of thousands of chips since 2008. The company says it is ramping up production to deliver WHDI chip sets to multiple consumer electronics makers and makers of computer gear. The company says that its WHDI can be designed to fit in a compact space for mobile devices and operate on low power levels. That will enable smartphones, tablets and other devices to transmit video a short distance wirelessly. Users could use "flick to scroll" apps where they use a tablet to control action for game that they view on a TV.
Yoav Nissan-Cohen, chief executive of Amimon, said that WHDI is the only viable option for connecting handheld devices to a TV. The company was founded in 2004 and it has 85 employees.
The company has raised $65 million to date. Existing investors include Argonaut Private Equity, Cedar Fund, Evergreen Venture Partners, Motorola Ventures, STATA Venture Partners, and Walden Israel. New investors include Chicago-based AMITI Ventures and Taiwan-based Hantech International Venture Capital Corp (H&Q Taiwan Co).