MEMS startup Qualtré secures $8 million strategic round
Qualtré will use the Series C financing to continue development of its Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) MEMS sensor design and its High Aspect Ratio PolySilicon/Single-Crystal Silicon (HARPSS) process technology, which have demonstrated benefits compared to alternative sensor technologies.
This differentiation, says Qualtré, sets it apart from other companies in the rapidly growing market for inertial sensors, and is also the main reason Qualtré was selected by EETimes as one of the top ten MEMS/Analogue start-up companies to watch in 2014.
Qualtré continues its partnership with Alps Electric, which was announced in 2013. Qualtré and Alps Electric are working together to launch Qualtré's first product - a 3-axis gyro targeting the industrial market.
This product has been claimed to show best-in-class performance on a number of characteristics - such as performance resistant to vibration and shock - at a 2x price/performance advantage. The demonstrated performance of this product, along with this Series C financing, rely on the company's BAW & HARPSS technologies.
The Series C investment will enable Qualtré to execute its strategy of developing inertial sensor products for high-end markets and leverage the versatility of its BAW & HARPSS technologies for the consumer market.
Using its HARPSS process to provide a cost reduction path, the company hopes to realise its mission of enabling next generation consumer applications like indoor navigation, location-aware services, and optical/electrical image stabilisation at the lowest system-level cost.
"MEMS has emerged as one of the major innovation trends," comments Edgar Masri, President & CEO of Qualtre. "Qualtré is uniquely positioned to enable the next generation of sensor-based applications like location-based services, driver-assisted vehicles, and the Internet of Things due to the combination of our disruptive BAW & HARPSS technologies and our highly skilled engineering team."
