Contact Information: Editorial Contacts: Jim Donaldson Impinj, Inc. 206-834-1091 Email Contact Lynda Kaye Mango Communications for Impinj 650-799-2888 Email Contact
Impinj Raises $19 Million in Private Funding Round; Prepares for Increased Demand for Item-Level RFID Technology
| Source: Impinj, Inc.
SEATTLE, WA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- March 7, 2007 --Leading semiconductor and RFID technology
provider Impinj, Inc. today announced that the company has raised $19
million in a private funding round. AllianceBernstein L.P., one of the
world's largest asset management firms, led the oversubscribed round. All
previous investors also participated including venture firms ARCH Venture
Partners, GF Private Equity Group, Madrona Venture Group, Mobius Venture
Capital, Polaris Venture Partners and strategic investors Unilever
Technology Ventures, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, VentureTech Alliance
and the Viterbi Group.
The new financing brings Impinj's total venture and strategic investment to
$98 million and will be used to escalate product development and delivery
of the GrandPrix™ UHF item-level RFID solution comprising Speedway™
readers, tags powered by Monza™ chips, and application-specific
near-field reader antennas.
"The demand from retail and product distribution companies for our
GrandPrix RFID solution is increasing rapidly as the measurable benefits
from tagging individual, high-value products such as pharmaceuticals and
apparel become apparent," said William Colleran, president and CEO of
Impinj. "This investment by AllianceBernstein and our previous financial
supporters validates our vision for the RFID industry and allows Impinj to
accelerate item-level RFID product development to address burgeoning
demand."
Impinj recently announced collaboration with Owens-Illinois and Purdue
Pharma, leaders in pharmaceutical manufacturing, to improve the performance
and security of drug bottle fill-lines and downstream supply chain
operations by using the GrandPrix solution's item-level tracking features.
Impinj expects similar success from numerous item-level tagging projects
underway with manufacturers and distributors in the pharmaceutical,
consumer packaged goods, apparel and retail industries worldwide.
"We are excited by Impinj's leadership position in the RFID industry and by
the company's recent prominent wins in pharmaceutical applications," said
Jamie Kiggen, Senior Vice President of AllianceBernstein. "We believe that
the pharmaceutical field represents just the first of many compelling
market opportunities for Impinj's item-level RFID products."
About Impinj, Inc.
Impinj, Inc. is a semiconductor and RFID company whose patented
Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its two synergistic business
lines: high-performance RFID products and semiconductor intellectual
property (IP). A leading contributor to the RFID standards for high-volume
supply-chain applications worldwide, Impinj leverages its technical
expertise and industry partnerships to deliver the GrandPrix™ solution,
comprising tags, readers, software and systems integration to offer RFID
that just works™. Impinj's innovative IP products, core to the
company's RFID tags, are licensed to leading semiconductor companies
worldwide, allowing them to seamlessly integrate crucial nonvolatile memory
(NVM) alongside analog and digital functionality on a single chip.
Impinj's IP products include the popular AEON® family of embeddable
cores, which provides rewriteable NVM technology in logic CMOS
manufacturing. For more information, visit www.impinj.com.
Impinj, Speedway, Self-Adaptive Silicon, GrandPrix, Monza, "RFID that just
works," and AEON are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Impinj,
Inc.