N-Trig raises $41m in year's largest funding to date

President Bush's 2009 budget presentation gave the biotechnology company a boost.

N-Trig's DuoSense multitouch technology combines pen and zero-pressure touch for mobile and fixed computers into a single device, enabling mobile computers to recognize multiple simultaneous touch points, so you can use more than one finger at once to manipulate images on a computer screen. With touch screens coming back into fashion with the launch of the iPhone, N-Trig may also be making a comeback. Based in Kfar Saba, the company has offices in Austin, Texas, and Taipei, Taiwan.

N-Trig is one of the Israeli high-tech companies or start-ups that make products for PCs. The company launched its product last September and signed a contract with Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL), which has integrated the technology in its new mobile computers. The company has sold tens of thousands of units to Dell to date, and the revenue from the contract is estimated at tens of millions of dollars a year.

As a result of this contract, N-Trig won recognition that is hard to buy: President George W. Bush presented his 2009 budget to Congress on a Dell computer with N-Trig's product installed in it.

N-Trig president Meir Morag founded the company in 1999, and its CEO is Amihai Ben-David. Morag co-founded e-Sim Ltd.(Nasdaq:ESIMF).

"Globes": Why do you need so much money now?

Ben-David: "N-Trig is a fabless company. We're not investing in capital equipment, but financially assist our manufacturers to meet the targets we need. We've expanded from zero sales to huge sales. We launched our product in September, and by the end of 2007, we had $2 million in sales a month. To maintain our growth rate, we must do some things that require money."

Such as?

"You need capital to turn into a global company for example. We have a subsidiary in Taiwan with six employees, which will expand to fifteen employees by year-end. We also have a subsidiary in the US with two employees, which will grow to four. We also have to expand our center in Israel to handle all the projects we're due to undertake during 2008."

Ben-David adds that N-Trig will have tens of millions of dollars in sales in 2008. "I assume that we'll sign two new contracts in 2009, each of which will amount to at least $20 million. The potential of this market appears real for a company of our size," he adds.

The possibility that N-Trig will see its DuoSense technology installed in Apple Inc.'s (Nasdaq: AAPL) touch screen mobile phones cannot be ruled out. Essentially, the technology can be applied with any device with a touch screen, including televisions, games, smart phones, and hand-held devices.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 20, 2008

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