Smart Grid Propels Ember to Banner Year in 2009
By Ember Corporation, PRNETuesday, January 19, 2010
Company poised for spectacular ramp in 2010
BOSTON and CAMBRIDGE, England, January 20 - Ember, a leading provider of low-power, wireless mesh networking
technology, had a banner year in 2009 with record revenues, record bookings,
new products and new funding, among other achievements.
Ember achieved 27 percent revenue growth in 2009 and ended the year with
its highest quarterly revenues ever. Ember entered the new year with even
higher levels of bookings for the first quarter and is poised for a dramatic
ramp in 2010. The growth was fueled in part by large scale deployments of
smart meters, a critical piece of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI),
where Ember has strategically focused their solutions to deliver the
reliability, security and scalability for smart grid initiatives worldwide.
Ember's ZigBee networking systems — chips, software and tools –
simplify the complexity of integrating embedded software, networking and RF
for developing low power, wireless products in Smart Energy, connected home
and other remote monitoring and control applications. Since its inception,
Ember has been an industry leader, future-proofing customers with the most
advanced features, which has given them confidence to develop their product
roadmaps on Ember's platform.
During the year, Ember launched the ARM Cortex-M3 based EM300 family
system-on-chips (SoCs), its 3rd generation ZigBee chip family that packs the
industry's highest wireless networking performance and code density into the
lowest power-consuming chip set. Ember also released its 4th generation
ZigBee networking software that provides features critical for Smart Energy
applications.
Ember's venture capital investors invested an additional US$8 million
into the company, bringing the total capital raised by Ember to US$89
million. In addition, the company closed a US$5 million round of debt
financing. The new funding helps Ember bolster the organization and
infrastructure for aggressive growth in 2010 and beyond. The company also
signed new sales channels in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India and Hong
Kong which are emerging as key future markets for smart energy products.
Ember strengthened its leadership with the addition of the former CEO of
US Power Generating Company, Jacob Worenklein, and Mohamad Ali, senior vice
president of corporate development at Avaya, two heavy-hitters from the
energy and networking space to the board of directors.
Finally, Ember was named a Leading Green Technology Innovator for 2009 on
the GoingGreen East 50 Top Private Company List, and a winner in the "Best
Of" category for the 2009 MITX Technology Awards for the company's impact on
the Smart Energy sector.
"The successes of 2009 and the very bright outlook for 2010 has clearly
established Ember as the definitive world leader in ZigBee networking
technology especially in Smart Energy applications," said Bob LeFort, Ember
CEO. "This is the most exciting time to be in our kind of business — broad
deployments of pioneering technology that will help utilities, consumers and
society solve critical energy-related problems around the world."
About Ember
Ember Corporation (www.ember.com) develops wireless mesh networking
technology — chips, software, tools — for Smart Energy, connected homes, as
well as many other monitoring and control applications enabling greener
living and work environments. The Boston-based company is a promoter of the
ZigBee Alliance with an IC design center in Cambridge, England, office in
Hong Kong and sales channels worldwide.
Ravi Sharma of Ember Corporation, +1-617-951-1236, ravi.sharma at ember.com; or Michelle Dillon of Beaupre & Co. Public Relations for Ember Corporation, +1-603-559-5835, mdillon at beaupre.com
Tags: Boston And Cambridge, Ember Corporation, England, Massachusetts, Western Europe