This article was originally published by RFID Update.
June 21, 2006—At the company’s technology conference last week in New York, Bear Stearns released a report on the state of the RFID industry. Included in the report was a list of private financings to occur over the last year in the RFID industry. The report doesn’t claim that the list is all-inclusive (surely there were stealth financings and others which went unannounced), but the coverage does appear to be quite comprehensive as far as the investment activity of which RFID Update is aware.
| Date | Company | Amount | Investors |
| May’06 | TAGSYS | $35m | JPMorgan Partners, Cazenove Private Equity, Elliot Associates, Endeavor |
| May’06 | RCD Technology | $2m | NextStage Capital, Zon Capital, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners |
| May’06 | SupplyScape | $8m | Pfizer, Bethesda Partners, IDG Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners and Pilot House Ventures |
| May’06 | OATSystems | $6m | Hercules Technology Growth Capital |
| Apr’06 | TrenStar | $10m | Trencor Ltd. and The Carlyle Group |
| Mar’06 | AXCESS International | $2.3m | Amphion Innovations |
| Feb’06 | PINC Solutions | N/A | Sutter Hill Ventures |
| Feb’06 | ThingMagic | $6m | CSCO, Nicholas Negroponte, Silicon Valley Bank |
| Dec’05 | Impinj | $26.5m | GF Private Equity Group, VentureTech Alliance, ARCH Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Mobius Venture Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, Unilever Technology Ventures, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund and the Viterbi Group |
| Nov’05 | Reva Systems | $10m | Charles River Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners |
| Nov’05 | T3Ci | $8.8m | Bessemer Venture Partners , Venrock Associates, Red Rock Ventures, SAP Ventures and a company founder |
| Oct’05 | ThingMagic | $15m | The Tudor Group, Exxel Group, Inventec Appliances, Morningside Technology Ventures Ltd., and Top Line Growth Capital LLC |
| Sep’05 | Vue Technology (formerly MeadWestVaco’s Intelligent Systems) | N/A | Partech International, Canaan Partners |
| Aug’05 | SkyeTek | $8m | Appian Ventures, Palomar Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners |
| Aug’05 | G2 Microsystems | N/A | UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund |
| Aug’05 | TrueDemand | $6m | Mayfield Fund, Bay Partners |
| Jun’05 | RF Code | $20m | QuestMark Partners, Intel Capital |
| Apr’05 | OATSystems | $12.5m | Matrix Partners, Greylock Partners |
| Source: Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. | |||
Some takeaways:
- Aggregate private financing topped $175 over the last 12 months.
- There were 18 financings for 16 companies. Two companies, OATSystems and ThingMagic, received two separate rounds of financing.
- Not surprisingly, much of the $175 million was invested in hardware. Seven hardware companies received funding, totaling $102.5 million. Those companies: G2 Microsystems, Impinj, RCD Technology, Reva Systems, SkyeTek, TAGSYS, and ThingMagic. (Note that G2 Microsystems’ financing amount was not listed, so the aggregate total would actually be above $102.5m.)
- Software received less than half the amount that hardware did, totaling $41.3 million across five companies. They are: OATSystems, SupplyScape, T3Ci, TrueDemand, and Vue Technology. (Note that Vue’s financing amount was not listed, so the aggregate total would actually be above $41.3m.)
- The four remaining companies can best be categorized as asset tracking plays whose software/hardware offerings are tightly integrated, thereby making it difficult to define them as either software or hardware companies. They are: AXCESS International, PINC Solutions, RF Code, and TrenStar. Together, these four asset tracking firms received $32.3 million, with the caveat that PINC Solutions’ funding amount was unlisted.
