Trameto raises funds as it ships first universal PMIC silicon
Welsh power management chip designer Trameto has raised a second round of funding as it ships first silicon of its universal power management IC for energy harvesting.
The funding comes from Swiss GPS module maker u-blox and existing investor the Development Bank of Wales. u-blox will also join the board as an observer.
Like the first round, the amount of funding from the bank was not disclosed. What is public is that the company has raised £380,000 in grants from the UK government since 2017.
“This funding round enables us to embark on the next part of our journey to engage more widely with the market to complete and promote our OptiJoule energy harvesting PMIC solutions,” said Huw Davies, CEO and co-founder.
“We have first silicon and will be providing the latest version of our demonstration boards to lead partners and customers over the next few weeks. The funding allows to ramp up our engagement with the market through these new platforms,” he told eeNews Power.
“Meeting the demand to remove or reduce the reliance on batteries used in wireless IoT devices is one of the initial application markets we are addressing. OptiJoule’s harvester-agnostic and autonomous approach offers considerable design flexibility and BOM cost savings for IoT device manufacturers.”
“We have seen a measurable rise in interest in our solutions over the past few months. Providers of sensor solutions are recognising the value in OptiJoule’s multi harvesting and universal capabilities,” he said.
“Trameto has a clear vision to help manufacturers adopt an alternative approach to powering IoT devices. Unlike existing energy harvesting techniques that require significant design effort for different harvester types, OptiJoule autonomously adapts to any, many, and multiple harvester technologies,” said Tony Milbourn, Corporate Strategy at u-blox and the founder of TTPcom in Cambridge.
Trameto previously received investment from the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, believed to be the first Welsh company to benefit from the SME Instrument Phase 2 grant initiative. Trameto is also the first European company to be accepted into the Californian-based Silicon Catalyst, with an investment.
“Incorporating batteries in an industrial sensor effectively locks in the need to regularly replace them, disrupting production and contributing to high through-life operating and maintenance costs. Trameto’s OptiJoule EH PMICs offer the simplest, most effective, and economical way to create self-sustaining wireless IoT solutions,” said Dr. Richard Thompson, Senior Investment Executive, Development Bank of Wales.
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