WiSpry picks up $7 million in venture capital

March 8th, 2008, 5:00 am · 1 Comment · posted by Jan Norman, small-business columnist

WiSpry Inc., in Irvine has picked up another $7 million in its second round of outside equity financing and could receive more in the coming months. The company designs and markets tunable radio frequency products for the wireless industry.

Although present investors American River Ventures, Blueprint Ventures and L-Capital Partners led the deal, a new player, DoCoMo Capital made a strategic investment as well. DoCoMo Capital is a U.S. subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo Inc., the leading mobile communications company based in Japan.

That’s a good indication that the mobile communications industry is eager for lower cost and more power in its circuits and components.

“The addition of DoCoMo Capital in this round adds substantial validation to the value proposition that we are brining to the wireless handset market,” said WiSpry President and CEO Russ Garcia.

DoCoMoCapital President and CEO Nobuyuki Akimoto said, “We believe that WiSpry’s tunable RF product technology will be revolutionary for the woreless marketplace and will enable a new generation of mobile devices with better power efficiency, smaller form factor and superior RF performance that are able to seamlessly support multiple mobile communication standards and worldwide frequency bands.”

Another new investor in this round is Arkian, WiSpry’s Korean sales representative. Existing investors Hotung Capital Management, In-Q-Tel and Shepherd Ventures round out the list of investors.

This money will help WiSpry move from developing its technology to proving its products. Several other potential investors are studying the company and may bring additional financing in the next 60 days, the company said.

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