Product category:
Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Tao Group
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 14 September 2001
$18 million equity investment for Tao
Tao Group has received an equity investment of approximately $18 million from a team of investors led by Bowman Capital Partners.
Tao Group has received an equity investment of approximately $18 million from a team of investors led by Bowman Capital Partners Tao has developed intent, a binary portable, language-independent, high-performance, multimedia platform that is now used by many of the world's leading OEMs in their client products for home and mobile networks
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 22 Apr 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Hazel Cameron, general partner at Bowman and who heads up the firm's European operations, will serve on Tao's board of directors.
"It is testament to the strength of Tao's team and technology that at a time when the capital markets are so depressed, we can attract investment from blue chip finance and industry partners", said Francis Charig, Chairman of Tao.
"Tao's intent product has been emerging as a major player for the current generation of client devices, and the investment will allow us to pursue an aggressive 'go to market' strategy to achieve our commercial goals".
Further reading
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Tao Group's Intent multimedia platform is being used in Sony's new NDR-XR1 network digital recorder.
Multimedia platform boosts Java content
Tao Group has made major enhancements and additions to its Intent technology suite with the launch of the Intent 2 SDK.
Control centre takes charge of browsing
Qi is a novel brandable control centre for mobile phones and consumer electronic devices.
"With operators now actively seeking the distribution of revenue-generating services, the markets are in need of a client platform that will enable the delivery of such services to the consumer.
Tao has spent almost a decade in development of a standards-conformant platform driven by many unique processes to make the availability of premium services across networks a reality".
"Bowman has invested into Tao because of the combination of its impressive management team and its ownership of a range of products that meet the immediate and future needs of the global communications markets", said Bowman's Hazel Cameron.
"As the demand for premium services increases rapidly, so does the necessity for having a high performance multimedia engine.
We believe Tao is well positioned to become a global leader in the client device market".
NEC's Koji Yamasaki, Assistant General Manager of the Mobile Terminals Division commented, "The high performance and capability of Java technology has become one of the important solutions for mobile operators.
NEC, one of the leading mobile handset suppliers in Japan, has decided to make this investment because we recognise that Tao has technologies in this area that give it advantages over the other companies in this important sector".
"Sharp recognises the need for effective and leading edge, strategic, middleware solutions across products in order to decrease cost and time to market", explained Toru Chiba, Group Deputy General Manager of Sharp's Corporate R and D Group.
"Tao's intent has been developed carefully over many years, and we will incorporate it as the platform for a whole range of future products".
"This investment underlines Sony's commitment to Tao", said Hiro Uchida, General Manager of Sony's Strategic Venture Investment Department.
"Sony first invested into Tao in late 1999, and we are very pleased to demonstrate our continued support by participating in this third financing round".
"Motorola, having been the first corporate investor into Tao, back in 1996, is delighted to welcome these other companies as investors into Tao", said Ray Burgess, Corporate Vice President of Motorola and a Board Member at Tao for almost 5 years.
"We believe that the promise of Tao is extremely exciting and we will continue to offer our full support".
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