Smart Grid Propels Ember to Banner Year in 2009

BOSTON and CAMBRIDGE, England, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Ember, a leading provider of low-power, wireless mesh networking technology, had a banner year in 2009 with record revenues, record bookings, new products and new funding, among other achievements.

Ember achieved 27 percent revenue growth in 2009 and ended the year with its highest quarterly revenues ever. Ember entered the new year with even higher levels of bookings for the first quarter and is poised for a dramatic ramp in 2010. The growth was fueled in part by large scale deployments of smart meters, a critical piece of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), where Ember has strategically focused their solutions to deliver the reliability, security and scalability for smart grid initiatives worldwide.

Ember's ZigBee networking systems -- chips, software and tools -- simplify the complexity of integrating embedded software, networking and RF for developing low power, wireless products in Smart Energy, connected home and other remote monitoring and control applications. Since its inception, Ember has been an industry leader, future-proofing customers with the most advanced features, which has given them confidence to develop their product roadmaps on Ember's platform.  

During the year, Ember launched the ARM Cortex-M3 based EM300 family system-on-chips (SoCs), its 3rd generation ZigBee chip family that packs the industry's highest wireless networking performance and code density into the lowest power-consuming chip set. Ember also released its 4th generation ZigBee networking software that provides features critical for Smart Energy applications.

Ember's venture capital investors invested an additional $8 million into the company, bringing the total capital raised by Ember to $89 million. In addition, the company closed a $5 million round of debt financing. The new funding helps Ember bolster the organization and infrastructure for aggressive growth in 2010 and beyond. The company also signed new sales channels in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India and Hong Kong which are emerging as key future markets for smart energy products.

Ember strengthened its leadership with the addition of the former CEO of US Power Generating Company, Jacob Worenklein, and Mohamad Ali, senior vice president of corporate development at Avaya, two heavy-hitters from the energy and networking space to the board of directors.

Finally, Ember was named a Leading Green Technology Innovator for 2009 on the GoingGreen East 50 Top Private Company List, and a winner in the "Best Of" category for the 2009 MITX Technology Awards for the company's impact on the Smart Energy sector.

"The successes of 2009 and the very bright outlook for 2010 has clearly established Ember as the definitive world leader in ZigBee networking technology especially in Smart Energy applications," said Bob LeFort, Ember CEO. "This is the most exciting time to be in our kind of business -- broad deployments of pioneering technology that will help utilities, consumers and society solve critical energy-related problems around the world."

About Ember

Ember Corporation (www.ember.com) develops wireless mesh networking technology -- chips, software, tools -- for Smart Energy, connected homes, as well as many other monitoring and control applications enabling greener living and work environments. The Boston-based company is a promoter of the ZigBee Alliance with an IC design center in Cambridge, England, office in Hong Kong and sales channels worldwide.

SOURCE Ember Corporation