Crossbar Closes Series C Funding of $25 Million

Crossbar, Inc., a start-up pioneering Resistive RAM (RRAM) technology, has completed a $25 million Series C funding in an oversubscribed round.

Participating in the round were Crossbar’s existing investors Artiman Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Northern Light Venture Capital and the University of Michigan.

In addition, new investors included SAIF Partners, Korea Investment Partners, CBC-Capital and Tao Venture Capital Partners, validating the opportunity and appeal of the Crossbar technology.

With a three-layer structure, RRAM technology can be stacked in 3D, making it possible to store terabytes of data on a single postage-stamp sized chip. Its simplicity, stackability and CMOS compatibility enable logic and memory to be integrated onto a single chip at the latest technology node, making it for embedded memory applications as well.

“The response to Crossbar’s RRAM technology has been truly overwhelming and we are now actively engaged in discussions with some of the leaders in the electronics and semiconductor markets,” said George Minassian, CEO, Crossbar. “Our Crossbar team consists of some of the best and brightest minds in the memory industry and our investors are among the most respected. With this latest round of funding we can further accelerate our market momentum, and more rapidly bring our technology to market.”

Since emerging from stealth-mode in August 2013, Crossbar has continued to execute against its technology milestones in preparation for the first wave of commercialization of its technology.

The company has demonstrated a 1MB storage device for embedded code applications, validating its RRAM technology is ready for production with promising yields and performance measures.

It is finalizing agreements with several international semiconductor companies and plans to announce its first licensing agreements with several customers later this year.

Crossbar’s Series C financing closed on March 4, 2014 and brings the total raised to $50 million.

The company plans to use the funds to complete manufacturing and licensing operations.

“In a very short time Crossbar’s team has already overcome some of the most complex technical hurdles to ready a brand new non-volatile memory technology for mass production,” said Tim Wilson, MD, Artiman Ventures. “With this new round of funding, they will further accelerate their momentum as they endeavor to forever change the landscape of Flash memory and storage.”

“The continued success of Crossbar clearly validates the significant potential we saw in the University of Michigan’s early research,” said Wen Hsieh, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “From day one, we firmly believed that this technology could deliver transformative performance and storage capacity that would usher in a new generation of mobile, consumer electronics, enterprise storge and industrial applications.“