Ember™ Corporation (www.ember.com), provider of embedded wireless networking solutions, today announced the closing of its oversubscribed Series B financing round with total commitments of $20 million, bringing Ember’s total raised capital to $28 million. New investor RRE Ventures led the round, which attracted new investors DFJ ePlanet Ventures and included participation from all Series A investors including DFJ New England, GrandBanks Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, and Stata Venture Partners. The capital raised will be used to further develop and enhance the EmberNet product suite and fuel the company’s expansion into the global market, particularly Europe and Asia.
“After meeting each development milestone and accomplishing eight successful EmberNet™ pilots, this funding is another important step toward establishing Ember as the standard for embedded wireless networking,” said Jeffrey Grammer, president and CEO of Ember. “RRE Ventures and DFJ ePlanet have strong track records of helping companies mature into global industry leaders, and adding them to our existing investors strengthens us further.”
“Ember is a unique and exciting investment opportunity for us. Many of the Fortune 500 companies with whom RRE works will find the ability to wirelessly network their sensing and control devices extremely compelling and realize a significant cost savings as a result,” said Stuart J. Ellman, a founder and general partner at RRE Ventures. “We look forward to assisting Ember in gaining additional momentum by building profitable business relationships with these companies.”
As a result of its investment, Mr. Ellman has joined Ember’s Board of Directors. Other board members include: Robert Poor, founder and CTO of Ember; Jeffrey Grammer, president and CEO of Ember; Charles Lax, founder and managing general partner of GrandBanks Capital; Bob Metcalfe, general partner at Polaris, Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder; Rebecca Henderson, Eastman Kodak professor of management at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Todd Hixon, managing director of DFJ New England Fund.
“The Ember team has the energy, vision, and experience to build one of the next great technology companies,” said Jennifer Fonstad, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Ventures. “The company has rapidly established traction with U.S. companies as evidenced by the number of customer wins, and we’re excited to help the company emulate that success internationally.”
Ember’s EmberNet product line is a family of hardware, development tools and software products for embedded wireless networking. The EmberNet suite is optimized for sensing and control applications requiring low to moderate bandwidth. EmberNet’s patented mesh routing algorithms make every EmberNet Node both an endpoint and a router, enabling EmberNet networks to direct traffic around the interference commonly found in harsh industrial conditions. EmberNet has proven successful in water treatment plants, manufacturing lines, and power stations. With EmberNet’s self-organizing, self-healing, easy-to-use technology, customers are able to create the most resilient and robust embedded wireless networks.
About Ember Corporation
Ember removes the barriers to embedded networking. Ember’s self-organizing, self-healing, wireless mesh technology is uncompromisingly robust, easy to use, and flexible. The EmberNet networking platform gives forward-thinking companies the means to create products that do more by communicating better.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Ember Corporation is a privately held company with investments from Polaris Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital, Dr. Robert Metcalfe, DFJ New England, Stata Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and DFJ ePlanet and is focused on enhancing sensing and control products through wireless connectivity. More information is available at www.ember.com.
About RRE Ventures
RRE Ventures (www.rre.com), a New York-based venture capital firm, was founded in 1994 by Jim Robinson III, Jim Robinson IV and Stuart Ellman. RRE invests in entrepreneurial information technology companies, placing special emphasis on software, communications and related enterprises that can become industry leaders in rapidly growing markets. With over $600 million under management, RRE combines significant capital resources with managerial, financial and technical experience and corporate contacts to create value for its portfolio companies. The firm leverages these assets to establish business and financial relationships, provide strategic direction and develop both domestic and international sales and marketing opportunities. RRE has helped build over sixty companies, including WatchGuard (WRGD), Vastera (VAST), CapitalThinking, e-Duction, Frictionless Commerce, MontaVista, ReefEdge and Vocera.
About DFJ ePlanet
Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Ventures is a global venture capital firm focused on the information technology sector. DFJ ePlanet was founded in 1999 to take advantage of the growing trend towards globalization in technology by the leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, in partnership with Europe-based ePlanet Partners (founded by Messrs. Roderick Thomson and Asad Jamal). DFJ ePlanet focuses on expansion and later stage investments in the U.S. and on seed to later stage investments in Europe, Israel and Asia.
About Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) New England
DFJ New England provides capital and hands-on support to high-potential early-stage information technology companies, with emphasis on software, software-based services, networking, and their underlying technologies. DFJ New England is affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm with $3.0 billion of capital that has developed a network of early stage funds in key markets around the world, and with Cambridge Innovations, a prominent business development company located in Cambridge, Mass. Experienced, local partners together with the DFJ global network enable DFJNE to deliver unique value to entrepreneurs, combining the focused attention of a traditional venture fund with the global scope and deep resource of a major venture investor. More information is available at: www.dfjne.com.
About GrandBanks Capital
GrandBanks Capital is a newly formed venture capital firm, established in partnership with SOFTBANK and Mobius Venture Capital (SOFTBANK Venture Capital). GrandBanks Capital focuses on making early stage technology investments primarily located in the eastern part of the United States. Headquartered in Newton Center, Massachusetts with offices in New York City, GrandBanks seeks to leverage the strength of the strategic relationships provided by SOFTBANK’s extensive and worldwide portfolio of companies. More information is available at www.grandbankscapital.com.
About Polaris Venture Partners
With $2 billion under management, Polaris Venture Partners is a venture capital firm with investments across information and medical technology. Polaris takes an active lead role in its portfolio companies. The Polaris team is committed to helping entrepreneurs grow strong businesses by offering both operational and investment expertise. The firm currently supports more than 50 portfolio companies. Polaris-backed companies include: Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM); Allaire Corporation; Aspect Medical Systems (NASDAQ: ASPM); Centra Software (NASDAQ: CTRA); deCODE Genetics (NASDAQ: DCGN); Paradigm Genetics (NASDAQ: PDGM). Former Polaris-backed companies have included: Advanced Inhalation Research (AIR) (sold to Alkermes), and Solidworks (sold to Powersoft). The company has offices in Boston and Seattle. More information about Polaris Venture Partners is available at www.polarisventures.com.
About Stata Venture Partners
Stata Venture Partners, founded by Ray Stata, founder and chairman of Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI), is a private equity fund that invests in early stage, new business opportunities around the world. They have strategic investments in a wide array of technologies ranging from Genomic to telecommunications backbone and infrastructure. Stata Venture Partners specializes in helping companies build the internal infrastructure and long term strategic plan required to be successful in today’s dynamic marketplace.
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