Gabriel News
Iridigm Display Corporation Secures $25.6 Million in Over-subscribed Series B Financing
Emerging Leader in Display Technology Prepares for Market Launch and Expansion
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – July 15, 2004 – Iridigm Display Corporation, a privately-held fabless provider of flat panel displays, announced that it has closed an over-subscribed Series B round of $25.6M. New investors Gabriel Venture Partners and August Capital co-led the financing, which also included returning investors Dynafund, Intel Capital, QUALCOMM, Steamboat Ventures, and VentureTech Alliance.
Tim Chang from Gabriel Venture Partners and Vivek Mehra of August Capital have joined the Board of Directors. "We are excited by the additional experience and support that our new investors bring to the table,” said John Batey, COO of Iridigm. “This financing gives us the ability to accelerate our product development and commercial launch efforts, especially with the additional customer and partner activities resulting from our recent showing at the 2004 SID show.”
Iridigm will use the new round of capital to begin shipping display products incorporating the company’s proprietary, next generation iMoD™ technology. The iMoD solution consumes zero power while the displayed image remains unchanged, and its overall manufacturing cost is lower than that of a TFT-LCD, as no transistors, organics, color filters or polarizers are required.
Iridigm will initially focus on shipping display components for mobile devices and consumer electronics, such as PDAs, digital cameras, GPS, advanced pagers, cell phones and other wireless devices. In addition, the company will continue its international expansion into the Asia Pacific region working with manufacturing partners, and commercializing additional applications for its breakthrough technology.
"Iridigm's iMoD™ flat panel technology delivers a vastly superior display for a wide range of mobile devices," said Vivek Mehra of August Capital. "The company has made great progress by proving that iMoD™ products can be made at existing LCD fabs with their manufacturing partners."
“Iridigm is at a very exciting stage in its lifecycle,” said Tim Chang of Gabriel Venture Partners. “The company has already received strong validation from the mobile devices market, and is ready to go to market. At the same time, mobile is just one of the many areas well-suited for iMoD™, and Iridigm continues to expand its technology portfolio. We are confident the company is poised for dramatic adoption across multiple markets.”
QUALCOMM also participated heavily in the Series B round. "QUALCOMM is excited about the impact that Iridigm’s high performance, low cost, low power display technology can have as more multimedia is consumed on wireless devices," said Miles Kirby of QUALCOMM Ventures.
About Iridigm Display Corporation
Iridigm produces revolutionary reflective displays for a variety of applications including mobile devices and digital signage. Iridigm has created the iMoD Matrix™ component, a revolutionary new reflective color flat panel display technology based on MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems). The bright, reflective nature of the iMoD Matrix™ makes a display as easy to read as a glossy magazine. High image quality combined with inherent high resolution and ultra low power consumption makes it ideal for mobile applications of all types. Iridigm is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Additional information can be obtained from www.iridigm.com or by requests sent to info@iridigm.com.
About Gabriel Venture Partners
Gabriel Venture Partners® is a hands-on, early-stage venture capital firm with more than $260M under management across its offices in Silicon Valley and the Mid-Atlantic. Gabriel’s team of investors actively partner with portfolio companies and leverage their combined operating experience to provide value through customer and partner introductions, as well as assistance with go-to-market strategy and positioning. Gabriel focuses on specific sectors of information technology, including Wireless, Infrastructure Software & Systems, and Enterprise Software & Services. Representative investments include Placeware (acquired by Microsoft), IPWireless, and Netscaler. For more information, please visit: www.gabrielvp.com.
About August Capital
Founded in 1995, August Capital is a leading venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurial teams throughout the information technology market spectrum. With more than 50 years of combined venture capital experience and dozens of successful IPOs and public company board relationships, August Capital partners have financed technology companies with an aggregate market capitalization of more than one-half trillion dollars. August Capital is located at 2480
Sand Hill Road, Suite 101, Menlo Park, CA 94025. For more information, please visit www.augustcap.com.
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Gabriel Venture Partners
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