Anokiwave Inc of San Diego, CA, USA – which provides highly integrated silicon core chips and III-V front-end integrated circuits for 5G communications, mobile satellite communications and aerospace & defense markets that require millimeter-wave (mmW) active antenna based solutions – has closed a Series C financing round led by new investor Gefinor Capital in conjunction with US Boston Capital Corp and its affiliate Pear Tree Partners, as well as other previous investors. Gefinor Capital partner Chris Davis will join Anokiwave’s board of directors.
Following significant growth since the firm launched its first millimeter-wave active antenna silicon core IC family in 2015, the latest financing round is expected to drive continued growth in the 5G, SatCom and A&D markets. Anokiwave continues to see widespread and growing demand in its key markets from customers looking to industrialize planar active antennas at millimeter wavelengths via its all-silicon core ICs for commercial markets.
“Anokiwave is the only company with a production-ready suite of silicon ICs for the nascent 5G telecom market,” notes Davis. “This leading position is directly attributable to great foresight from management, coupled with excellence in engineering and decades of team experience designing advanced communications antenna ICs,” he comments.
“As the first 5G network deployments are starting in 2018, the urgency heightens to make millimeter-wave 5G technology commercially ready for consumers,” says Bill Umphrey, US Boston managing partner. “Anokiwave is continuing to make 5G a reality by leading the market with industrialized, production-ready products for millimeter-wave active antennas,” he adds. “With over 10 years of experience designing core ICs for millimeter waves, they are pushing this technology into prime-time for the 5G, SatCom, and A&D markets.”
Anokiwave has developed a family of highly integrated millimeter-wave beam-steering silicon ICs. Silicon offers the ability to integrate RF, digital and analog functions on a single IC, the firm notes. This enables all of the requisite functions for the active antennas to be placed on the IC, which then resides within the radiating element lattice of the antenna, enabling low-profile, low-cost, low-weight planar (flat) solutions.
“This latest funding round allows us to accelerate the introduction of our second generation of ICs, to develop the third generation of ICs, and to grow our teams worldwide,” says CEO Robert S. Donahue.
