Mobile TV chip maker Siano Mobile Silicon has secured a third round of funding amounting to $17.5 million (9.3 million). DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures (DFJTFV), led the funding round, and was joined by all of the existing investors from previous rounds – JVP, Star Ventures, Walden Israel, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Inventec Appliances. Siano has now raised $52 million in three rounds of funding.
Over the past 12 months, Siano has expanded its footprint in the Asian Mobile TV market, opening offices in Korea and Japan, and launching its SMS1180 receiver chip in China, in support of the Chinese Mobile TV technology that is currently making its debut at the Olympics Games. Earlier in the year, Siano launched its latest multi-standard chip, the SMS1130, which added the support of ISDB-T, the Mobile TV broadcasting standard used in Japan and Brazil, to the mobile TV technologies supported already in previous products: DVB-T, DVB-H and T-DMB.
The consumer market is now starting to fulfil the vision that gave birth to Siano back in 2004, says Siano CEO Alon Ironi. Namely that within just a few years, practically every single non-tethered consumer device with a colour LCD would include digital TV function. We are witnessing massive embedding of our products into a surprisingly wide range of devices, from mobile phones and notebooks to navigation devices, portable media players and even boom-boxes and digital photo frames. The new capital will help Siano expand its sales and customer support facilities worldwide, build adequate silicon inventory to match the increasing demand for its products, and continue developing state-of-the-art solutions for the mobile TV market.