Sydney-based long-distance Wi-Fi chip maker Morse Micro has raised $88 million in its Series C funding round.
The funding round was led by Japanese semiconductor company MegaChips, an existing investor in Morse Micro.
The Australian government’s National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) also added $35 million to the round.
Other earlier investors joined in too, including Blackbird, Main Sequence (backed by CSIRO), super funds like Hostplus, NGS (managed by Blackbird), UniSuper, and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with Lucy Turnbull.
Morse Micro had earlier raised $170 million in 2022. First, it secured $140 million in its Series B round, with $100 million of that coming from MegaChips. About 10 weeks later, it raised another $30 million from super funds.
Morse Micro is a 9-year-old startup founded by Michael De Nil and Andrew Terry, who previously worked as engineers at US semiconductor company Broadcom.
The company makes long-range, low-power chips that allow Internet of Things (IoT) devices to connect and communicate. These chips can work over distances of about 1 km in cities and up to 16 km in rural areas.
Their chips are used in many industries, including consumer products, agriculture, mining, renewable energy, transport, and smart metering.
Morse Micro’s Wi-Fi HaLow chips can send signals through walls and other barriers, helping extend Wi-Fi coverage.
The new funding will be used to speed up the company’s growth and build next-generation technology.
Morse Micro is Australia’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and NRF CEO David Gall called it “home-grown Australian success story.”
“Morse Micro employs over 130 people in Australia, including employees in regional New South Wales, and our investment will diversify the Australian economy, strengthen the nation’s sovereign manufacturing capabilities, and build local expertise in semiconductor design and innovation.”
De Nil, the CEO said the funding “is another strong vote of confidence in our mission to be the number one wireless IoT chip company in the world”.
“The future of IoT depends on connectivity that is long-range, power-efficient, secure and delivers on throughput – and that’s exactly where we are leading. With this raise, we are accelerating our expansion and preparing for the next phase of our company’s growth,” he said.
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