Mobile TV chip start-up Siano Ltd. has raise $17.5 million in its third financing round. DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures (TASE: TFVC) led the round, joined by all of the companies current investors: Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Star Ventures, Walden Israel, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Inventec Appliances of Taiwan. The company has raised $52 million to date, including the present round.
The financing comes shortly after "Globes" reported that Siano achieved a breakthrough in the Chinese market, with the launch of the SMS1180 receiver chip, which is supporting the Chinese mobile TV technology that is broadcasting Beijing Olympics Games.
Siano was founded in 2004. The company is targeting the mobile digital TV (MDTV) market, a new and promising market. The companies technology enable television broadcasts to mobile devices, including handsets, PDA, laptops, and car TVs.
Siano's MDTV chip supports the China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) mobile television and multimedia standard created for the Olympic Games. The standard will operate in 37 cities across the country. The the company has also won several design wins, including from China's Panda Electronics Group Co., which will produce a USB stick that will turn a handset into a TV or MP4 player.
Siano CEO Alon Ironi predicts that tens of millions of MDTV-capable devices in will be sold in China in the coming years, including 500,000 to one million devices this year this year, and five to ten million devices next year. Assuming $10-20 per chip for consumer electronics, the company could see tens of millions of dollars revenue from the Chinese market in 2009 alone.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 13, 2008
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