WiQuest Communications Announces Series A Funding

WiQuest Communications, Inc., an industry leader in wireless communications semiconductor and systems technology, today announced that it has closed a $13M round of institutional financing, led by Menlo Ventures and Palomar Ventures. This new capital will be used by WiQuest to hire additional staff, expand wireless research and development activities, and support marketing, interoperability testing, and production release of WiQuest's advanced ultrawideband (UWB) products.

WiQuest is building complete solutions for ultrawideband applications, from mobile handsets and portable gaming to audio/video systems in the modern digital home. WiQuest will enable an entirely new class of consumer product features, yielding valuable consumer benefits including high performance wireless multi-media, flexible PC connectivity, and simplified, lower cost home theatre installation. The WiQuest team understands the importance of reliability, robustness, and usability, and is actively engineering capabilities into its products that will greatly enhance consumer acceptance and satisfaction.

"We are very excited to be working with the WiQuest team," said Pravin Vazirani of Menlo Ventures. "We were attracted to WiQuest for a number of reasons, including a strong, proven wireless team, their focus on a highly differentiated, systems-oriented approach for multi-media, mobile, PC, and consumer electronics applications, and an excellent climate of opportunity for their ultrawideband technology."

"It is indeed a pleasure to have Menlo and Palomar join with us in our quest to bring this new wireless technology to the market," said Matthew B. Shoemake, Ph.D., founder, CEO and President of WiQuest. "Our vision for UWB leverages the unprecedented performance opportunity that the FCC and other worldwide bodies are enabling, and will allow consumers to finally 'cut the cord' and enjoy the wireless benefits of freedom and flexibility."

Founded in September 2003, WiQuest Communications has built a strong team comprised of semiconductor and system design veterans from companies including Alantro Communications, Nokia, Qualcomm, IBM, Texas Instruments, Gain Technology, Bay Networks, Sun Microsystems and others. The background of this organization includes hundreds of years of collective industry experience, resulting in dozens of successful high volume product implementations, from Ethernet switches to DSL chipsets to wireless LAN solutions. WiQuest employees are well recognized not only from their industry backgrounds but also from their visibility and leadership in standards and regulatory work, including the IEEE 802.11 working group and the Wi-Fi Alliance.

As an early contributing member of the MultiBand OFDM Alliance Special Interest Group (MBOA-SIG), WiQuest engineers have been actively involved in the development of the recently released MBOA-SIG physical layer (PHY) as well as the media access control (MAC) specifications. Dr. Shoemake, the former chairperson of both the IEEE 802.11g and 802.11n task groups, has also been a vocal spokesperson and technical supporter for the MultiBand OFDM UWB proposal, currently under consideration in the IEEE 802.15 personal area network working group. WiQuest is also a member of the USB Implementer's Forum and is active in its nascent wireless USB efforts.

"The WiQuest team has a proven track record of promoting standards and driving technology adoption," said Liam Quinn, Director, Communication Technology Strategy, Dell Corporation. "We anticipate that their continued standards participation and efforts in developing this new wireless technology will strengthen and accelerate the availability of UWB solutions around the world."

WiQuest will be attending the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, at booth #70325K in the MBOA Ultrawideband TechZone, located in the Innovations Plus area of CES this January 6th through the 9th, 2005. They will be participating along with personal computing and consumer electronics companies as well as with four key wireless industry organizations including the MBOA-SIG, the WiMedia Alliance, 1394 Trade Association, and Wireless USB Promoter Group. Customers, press, and industry analysts are invited and expected to participate in this breakthrough UWB event.

WiQuest Communications, Inc.
David G. Brenner, 214-547-1600 x102
David.Brenner@WiQuest.com

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