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Babu Mandava cofounded Beceem raises $20 Million

si Team
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
si Team
Santa Clara based Beceem Communications, a provider of mobile WiMAX chips, has raised $20 million in a strategic financing round led by Motorola's Home & Networks Mobility business. The existing Beceem's investors Global Catalyst Partners, Khosla Ventures, KTB Ventures, Walden International and previous strategic investors Intel Capital, NEC, Mitsui and Samsung also joined the funding. The company has raised $110 million to date.

With significant funds remaining from Beceem's last series, the new round of financing provides capital to allow the company to fund its aggressive mobile WiMAX roadmap at a time when the demand for WiMAX is accelerating.

"The Mobile WiMAX market is showing increased adoption and the time to scale for success is now," said Caroline Gabriel of Rethink Research. "Beceem has been an early WiMAX enabler and emerged as a leader in the mobile space following their success at Clearwire and UQ, as announced earlier this year. The additional funding should remove any concerns about Beceem's ability to focus on WiMAX or its long-term viability as a chip supplier in the space."

"The ability to raise a significant amount of money in this challenging environment is a clear vote of confidence from our strategic partners and investors," said Babu Mandava, CEO, Beceem. The investment comes at a time when significant expansion of WiMAX deployments in regions around the world is driving a steep ramp of WiMAX device shipments. The funds would allow Beceem to remain focused on executing its WiMAX product initiatives, to support its customers and strategic operator partners, and to win new designs worldwide.

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