)
An Australian semi-conductor developer looking to revolutionise Wi-Fi technology has closed a $140 million Series B and entered into a strategic partnership with lead investor MegaChips.
Based in Sydney, Morse Micro intends to use the capital to meet ‘unprecedented’ demand for its Wi-Fi HaLow technology - a solution for the Internet of Things (IoT) market that it says can reach 10-times the range of conventional Wi-Fi tech.
The round was led by MegaChips Corporation - an integrated circuit and chip maker based in Japan that has a $55 billion market capitalisation - and saw existing investors including Blackbird Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Skip Capital, Uniseed, SpringCapital and former Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull and his wife Lucy return for the Series B.
Founded Michael De Nil and Andrew Terry, Morse Micro says the fresh capital will let it focus on deepening its offerings, including the design of new solutions, while accelerating the go-to-market strategy for its existing Wi-Fi HaLow chips and modules.
A strategic partnership with MegaChips accompanies the investment, which will give the Australian scaleup a solid foothold across East Asia.
As part of the deal, MegaChips will manufacture Morse Micro’s semiconductors and modules, and will provide quality assurance, sales support and new distribution channels in the region.
“With MegaChips’ financial backing and robust manufacturing and sales support, Morse Micro will be poised to achieve our goal of revolutionising IoT connectivity with our growing portfolio of Wi-Fi HaLow SoCs, modules, software and development tools,” said Morse Micro co-founder and CEO Michael De Nil.
“With growing market traction for Wi-Fi HaLow-compliant solutions in the IoT ecosystem, we’re at an exciting inflection point. MegaChips shares our vision to revolutionise connectivity and build enduring Wi-Fi HaLow solutions for the future.
“We are delighted to partner with them, and for the support we’ve had from all of our investors, as we take the next step forward in our company’s journey toward market scale and leadership.”
Since it launched in 2016, Morse Micro has focused on developing long-range, low-power wireless connectivity solutions.
It claims that its current portfolio includes the smallest, fastest and lowest power Wi-Fi HaLow compliant chips and modules on the market.
The use cases of the technology are vast, and extend across the complete IoT ecosystem; from consumer to commercial, industrial to agricultural use. The company is also working in an industry currently witnessing major demand, with the semiconductor space estimated by McKinsey to valued at a trillion dollars by 2030.
Morse Micro says its semiconductors enable wirelessly connected devices to achieve 10-times longer range, covering 100-times the area or 1000-times the volume of traditional Wi-Fi networks.
“MegaChips pursues strategic partnerships and investments with promising startups like Morse Micro that have innovative ideas, cutting-edge applications and are expanding their businesses in areas such as industrial IoT, wireless communications and energy control,” said MegaChips Group president and CEO Tetsuo Hikawa.
“Morse Micro’s visionary management team has had a tremendous impact on the Wi-Fi industry, and we expect more great accomplishments to come as we work together to ramp production and sales of their flagship Wi-Fi HaLow products.”
Get our daily business news
Sign up to our free email news updates.
)
)
)
)
)
