Qualtre gains $10 million in funding with demo of first silicon MEMS BAW gyroscope

MARLBOROUGH, USA: Consumer electronics focused motion sensor supplier, Qualtre Inc., announced that with their successful demonstration of the world's first tri-axial solid-state silicon BAW (bulk-acoustic wave) gyroscope, their investors have injected an additional $10M in capital.

The new funding will enable the company's product launch, expansion of sales and supply chain infrastructure, and development of next-generation products based on their proprietary HARPSS™ MEMS process. Participating institutional venture capital investors in this round are Matrix Partners and Pilot House Ventures.

"With the tremendous adoption of motion sensing across multiple consumer electronics platforms, the market opportunity is growing exponentially. We are excited to increase our investment in the Qualtre team, enabling them to accelerate the productization of their innovative technology and gain rapid market penetration," said Stan Reiss, a General Partner with Matrix Partners.

MEMS gyroscopes are driving a new boom in the motion sensing market. Yole Developpement recently updated growth projections forecasting a market expanding to over $1.5 billion for MEMS gyroscopes in consumer electronic applications by 2015.

With the adoption in new platforms, like tablets and smart TV remote controls, the applications continue to expand and excite the users with new fun and desirable experiences.

"Since expanding our engineering team and qualifying our partner network, we have made tremendous progress in the commercialization of our motion sensor technology," explained Edgar Masri, CEO of Qualtre. "We are now providing engineering samples to our lead customers and beginning to show the unique performance attributes of our solid-state sensor design."