Impinj raises $26.5 million

LONDON — Fabless chip company Impinj Inc., which has so-called self-adaptive silicon technology and produces radio frequency identification (RFID) products, said it has secured $26.5 million in a round of funding.

Impinj (Seattle, Wash.), founded by industry guru and academic Carver Mead and Chris Diorio, an associate professor at the University of Washington, announced a deal in to supply its Monza RFID chips to Texas Instruments Inc. for the production of RFID inlay and strap products, in November. The size of the TI order was not disclosed at the time.

Participants in the latest funding round included GF Private Equity Group LLC, who led the round, and VentureTech Alliance along with existing investors ARCH Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Mobius Venture Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, Unilever Technology Ventures, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund and the Viterbi Group.

“This new injection of capital allows Impinj to maintain our excellent progress delivering the semiconductor solutions that our customers in the explosive RFID and the nascent embedded nonvolatile markets are demanding,” said William Colleran, president and CEO of Impinj, in a statement.

“We've been tracking Impinj for quite some time and see extensive applications for their technology and products in RFID, nonvolatile memory and beyond,” said Ron Norris, a managing partner at VentureTech Alliance, in the same statement.