AirPrime, Inc. Secures $40 Million in Third Round Financing with RBC Capital Partners, QUALCOMM and a Leading CDMA Carrier.Business & High-Tech Editors SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 10, 2001 Company to expand product line and accelerate development to further strengthen its market leadership position in high-speed 3G CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) A method for transmitting simultaneous signals over a shared portion of the spectrum. The foremost application of CDMA is the digital cellular phone technology from QUALCOMM that operates in the 800 MHz band and 1.9 GHz PCS band. 2000 products AirPrime Inc., a leading provider of high-speed Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless data and voice products, today announced it has raised US $40 million in series C equity financing Equity Financing The act of raising money for company activities by selling common or preferred stock to individual or institutional investors. In return for the money paid, shareholders receive ownership interests in the corporation. . The new round of equity investment, led by RBC RBC red blood cell. RBC or rbc abbr. red blood cell RBC, n See red blood cell count. RBC red blood cells; red blood (cell) count (see blood count). Capital Partners Telecom Fund (a division of Royal Bank of Canada Bank of Canada Canada's central bank, established under the Bank of Canada Act (1934). It was founded during the Great Depression to regulate credit and currency. The Bank acts as the Canadian government's fiscal agent and has the sole right to issue paper money. ), includes investments from QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM QCOM Qualcomm, Inc. (stock symbol) ), GE Equity, LibertyView Equity Partners, NB Capital Venture Partners, Omninet Capital, DRW DRW Drawing(s) DRW Dual Rear Wheels (pickup truck) DRW Detroit Red Wings DRW Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia (Airport Code) DRW Dr Who Venture Partners and others. Joining these new investors are existing strategic investors 3Com, Xircom (part of Intel), LSI LSI: see integrated circuit. (Large Scale Integration) Between 3,000 and 100,000 transistors on a chip. See SSI, MSI, VLSI and ULSI. Logic, TechHarvest Group and Ideal Partners. Dain Rauscher Wessels acted as the Exclusive Placement Agent and advisor to the company. AirPrime develops and supports high-speed CDMA wireless modules, adapters and enabling software for the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and (original equipment manufacturing) market. Working under a CDMA subscriber license from QUALCOMM, AirPrime provides technology-leading wireless access solutions for use in handheld computers, notebook PCs, and Internet appliances. In an announcement made with Sprint PCS in August, AirPrime revealed that it would deliver the first third-generation (3G) upgradeable wireless voice and data product for use on the Sprint PCS network. The Sprint PCS Wireless Web Digital Link(TM) for the Handspring(TM) Visor(TM) will be available through Sprint later this month. In addition, the company has recently been awarded contracts from leading device manufactures for next-generation 3G CDMA solutions. "Our formula for success, evidenced by our customer wins with leading CDMA carriers and computing OEMs, lies in our focus on CDMA technology and the OEM channel," said AirPrime President Anthony Gioeli. "Our new, high caliber investors, such as Royal Bank Capital Partners and QUALCOMM, will provide us with valuable insight as we expand our market leadership position." "AirPrime sits at the nexus of 3G wireless growth," said Peter Diedrich, Managing Director, RBC Capital Partners Telecom Fund. "With AirPrime, we have a razor-focused company with a solid business model, seasoned management and engineering team, and a strong wireless carrier and OEM customer pipeline to prove it. This, combined with a proven CDMA market leadership position is what attracted us, as well as other investors, to the company." "QUALCOMM's decision to invest in AirPrime demonstrates its commitment to promote and drive the worldwide adoption of CDMA for advanced, voice and data wireless services," said Jeff Jacobs, president of global development for QUALCOMM. "The continued acceleration of the CDMA standard relies on companies such as AirPrime for their ability to rapidly deliver wireless CDMA products and solutions to market." Industry analyst Dataquest, Inc., a unit of Gartner (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :IT) predicts that the North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. wireless data market will grow to 137.5 million subscribers by 2005. This growth, resulting from increased use of wireless multimedia messaging and email coupled with the development of enterprise market applications, will be fueled by the rollout of high-speed CDMA-based packet data networks. AirPrime will capitalize on this growing demand for wireless services, both domestically and abroad, by partnering with leading manufacturers to deliver the devices needed to access these advanced networks. AirPrime has assembled a world-class team with extensive experience in the wireless handset and computing industries. With headquarters in Santa Clara, product development offices in San Diego, and sales offices throughout the US and Asia, the company is actively realizing plans to introduce products based on CDMA2000 1X/1xEV data transmission standards, and is poised for the coming explosion in demand for wireless data and services. About AirPrime Inc. AirPrime Inc. is a leading supplier of high-speed, CDMA (code division multiple access) wireless data and voice solutions to the OEM (original equipment manufacturing) market. Under a full CDMA subscriber license from QUALCOMM, AirPrime is focused exclusively on providing the optimal current and next-generation wireless access products to OEMs for use in handheld devices, notebook PCs, and Internet appliances. AirPrime's wireless products will also be used in telemetry and emerging applications. A private, venture-backed company, AirPrime is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., with additional development offices in San Diego and has a sales presence in existing and emerging markets around the world. For more information please visit http://www.airprime.com. About RBC Capital Partners RBC Capital Partners is the private equity arm of Royal Bank Financial Group. RBC Capital Partners combines expertise in venture capital, merchant banking and mezzanine financing Mezzanine Financing A hybrid of debt and equity financing. Mezzanine financing is typically used to finance the expansion of existing companies, and it is basically debt capital that gives the lender the rights to convert to an ownership or equity interest in the company if the to offer North American high The North American High is an impermanent high-pressure cell or anticyclone created by anticyclogenesis (anticyclone + the Greek word genesis, meaning "birth, origin"), a formative process that occurs when cool or cold dry air settles onto western North growth companies a complete range of private equity funding Equity funding An investment consisting of a life insurance policy and a mutual fund. The insurance policy is paid by the collateral value of fund shares, giving the investor the advantages of insurance protection with the growth potential of a mutual fund. , including management buy-outs and recapitalizations. The RBC Capital Partners Telecommunications Fund is focused on early to late stage companies in information infrastructure bottlenecks. Specific focus is in four high growth areas of communications: Access, Wireless Networking, Broadband Networking, Carrier and Network Operating Support Systems. For more information, visit www.rbcap.com. About QUALCOMM QUALCOMM Incorporated (www.qualcomm.com ) is a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services based on the Company's CDMA digital technology. The Company's business areas include CDMA chipsets and system software; technology licensing; the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless BREW is an application development platform created by Qualcomm for mobile phones. It was originally developed for CDMA handsets, but has since been ported to other air interfaces including GSM/GPRS, UMTS, and CDMA. (TM) (BREW(TM)) applications platform; Eudora(R) e-mail software; digital cinema systems; and satellite-based systems including portions of the Globalstar(TM) system and wireless fleet management systems, OmniTRACS and OmniExpress(TM). QUALCOMM owns patents that are essential to all of the CDMA wireless telecommunications standards that have been adopted or proposed for adoption by standards-setting bodies worldwide. QUALCOMM has licensed its essential CDMA patent portfolio to more than 100 telecommunications equipment manufacturers worldwide. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., QUALCOMM is included in the S&P 500 Index and is a 2001 FORTUNE 500(R) company traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market Nasdaq stock market The first electronic stock market listing over 5000 companies. The Nasdaq stock market comprises two separate markets, namely the Nasdaq National Market, which trades large, active securities and the Nasdaq Smallcap Market that trades emerging growth companies. (R) under the ticker symbol Ticker Symbol An arrangement of characters (usually letters) representing a particular security listed on an exchange or otherwise traded publicly. When a company issues securities to the public marketplace, it selects an available ticker symbol for its securities which investors QCOM. |
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