WiQuest Communications Inc., a fabless semiconductor company focused on the design and production of complete high performance, ultrawideband-based wireless silicon solutions, announced the closing of $18 M in Series B funding. This round of funding was led by new investor Sequoia Capital - the principal venture investor behind well-known and respected companies such as Google, Cisco, Apple and Nvidia – and also included full participation by Series A investors, Menlo Ventures, Palomar Ventures and iD Ventures America. WiQuest will use these new funds to ramp production of its existing products and to further expand its growing portfolio of WiMedia and Wireless USB solutions. “We are pleased to support WiQuest’s ultrawideband technology development with a strategic venture investment,” said Mark Stevens, partner at Seqouia Capital. “WiQuest’s experienced management team has a proven depth of knowledge, industry leadership and notable accomplishments to date, and is a clear leader in the ultrawideband chipset market. They have already shown outstanding results and we look forward to seeing consumer products roll out later this year based on their chips.” With Sequoia’s investment, Stevens will join WiQuest Communications board of directors.“WiQuest has demonstrated excellence in execution by developing an industry-leading ultrawideband solution and customer base, then developing the production and operations to support the strong demand,” said Pravin Vazirani, WiQuest board member and partner with Menlo Ventures. “The company’s products and technology are leading the industry and we are very pleased to increase our investment during Series B.”

“The attraction of such high-caliber investors is due to the significant customer demand for our WQST110/101 chipset. The customer demand is due to WiQuest’s leadership in level of silicon integration, 1 gigabit per second data rates as well as completeness and readiness of our solution,” commented Dr. Matthew B. Shoemake, WiQuest founder, CEO and president. “The strong Series B lead by Sequoia Capital as well as the full participation by our Series A investors is a testament to our product and design-win leadership.”