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Peripherals - Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Canesta - Profile

HQ: San Jose, CA

Founded: April 1999

Management: Charlie Shavloy is President & CEO. He previously ran some hard-core companies including Nitronex which creates radio frequency power transistors with gallium nitride RF power semiconductor process; Conductus - now Superconductor Technologies; and Therma-Wave, a manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment.

Investors: In August 2005, Canesta raised $12M in Series C-1. Previous investments totalled $36M. Investors include: Apax Partners, Carlyle Venture Partners, Intel Capital, JP Morgan Partners, Korea Global IT Fund (KGIF), TechFund Capital, Thales Corporate Ventures, and Venrock Associates.

Business Model: The goal of Canesta's electronic perception technology is to make it possible for devices from PDAs, cell phones, or games, to vehicle control, airport security, or national security-class applications, to be able to perceive objects and features in the nearby environment so that ID is practical. Canesta's current target markets are automotive and security. The company makes money by selling a developers tool kit - that includes semiconductors, an API and sensors - to third parties. The kit sells for $7500. Canesta also markets a virtual keyboard that it brought to market with partners. It has been on the market for several years and has seen very limited uptake.

Competitors: Numerous smaller companies. View this list from the Machine Vision Online show. http://www.robots-vision-show.info/robots_vision_show_info.html

Dirt: Canesta is a surviver. It has been long on promise and short on sales for the past 7 years. It's virtual keyboard struck out so it is looking to security and automobile industries to manufacture some runs. Indeed big dollars are flowing into new security applications that could take advantage of Canesta's technology. Nevertheless, we have seen so many of these skunk works technologies in search of markets that we are sceptical.