Quantenna is known for releasing chips based on new and emerging versions of Wi-Fi. Their latest chip handles an early draft of the 802.11ax standard. (Image courtesy of Quantenna).
It will also push Wi-Fi further into the 5 GHz spectrum, which holds more room for wireless traffic than the 2.4 GHz band used by other standards. The QSR10G-AX chip is capable of creating 12 streams, with eight in the 5 GHz band.
Founded in 2006, Quantenna makes Wi-Fi chips for wireless routers and set-top boxes. The company says that it has sold more than 60 million chips to telecommunications companies like AT&T and Telefonica. But it has also become known for releasing chips for embryonic Wi-Fi standards like 802.11ax.
The company released the first 802.11ac chip for consumer electronics nearly two months before Broadcom, the biggest maker of Wi-Fi chips for mobile devices and routers, in late 2011. Quantenna has also jumped ahead in chips based on new versions, or Waves, of the larger 802.11ac standard.
That quickness has encouraged investors to pour money into the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. It has raised around $160 million in funding over the last decade from Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, Venrock, among others.
Quantenna’s sharpening focus on new standards could give it more bargaining power with investors when it goes public this week. On Monday, the company launched its initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange, with an eye toward mustering over $100 million. Its stock ticker will be QTNA.
It is a rare I.P.O. for the semiconductor industry. For chipmakers, venture capital funding has dried up over the last decade as the cost and time involved with making new chips has increased sharply.
In recent years, chipmakers have resorted to buying smaller and scrappier competitors in an attempt to keep growing and building more advanced chips. Earlier this year, Avago Technologies closed the bombshell $37 billion deal for Broadcom, one of Quantenna’s biggest competitors.
Quantenna plans to begin sampling the QSR10G-AX chip in early 2017. It did not say when it would enter production.