Australian Wifi HaLow silicon provider Morse Micro has closed its series C funding round, raising $59m (AU$88m).

This fresh capital will accelerate Morse Micro’s expansion into international markets, scale production of its Wifi HaLow chips, and support the ecosystem shift towards IoT 2.0, a phase of the IoT characterised by high-throughput, long-range and highly scalable connectivity for IoT devices.

“This funding is another strong vote of confidence in our mission to be the number one wireless IoT chip company in the world,” said Michael De Nil, CEO of Morse Micro. “The future of IoT depends on connectivity that is long-range, power efficient, secure and delivers on throughput, and that’s exactly where we’re leading. With this raise, we are accelerating our expansion and preparing for the next phase of our company’s growth.”

The funding comes at a time of significant momentum for Morse Micro and Australia’s semiconductor industry. The company has just announced the HaLowLink 2, its global evaluation platform. Also this year, the company launched a second generation system-on-chip (SoC), expanded its ecosystem partnerships, delivered more reference designs, and achieved mass production with leading OEMs. These milestones underscore Morse Micro’s role in driving the global shift from proof-of-concept IoT to full-scale, industrial and consumer deployments.

The round was led by MegaChips with participation from National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Blackbird, Main Sequence, Uniseed, Ray Stata, Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull, Startmate, and a number of institutional investors including Hostplus, NGS and UniSuper, bringing the company’s total funding to over $193m (AU$290m) to date.

“We are proud to continue our support for Morse Micro as it leads the global transition to IoT 2.0,” said Tetsuo Hikawa, CEO of MegaChips (www.megachips.co.jp). “For a number of years, we have worked in partnership with Morse Micro to increase production and sales of its flagship Wifi HaLow products. This investment reflects our belief that the time for Wifi HaLow is now. Morse Micro is uniquely positioned to accelerate the adoption of next generation IoT. We are confident this investment positions the team and technology for international leadership and future success on the public markets.”

NRFC (www.nrf.gov.au) CEO David Gall added: “Morse Micro is Australia’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and a home-grown Australian success story. Wifi was invented and patented by CSIRO scientists in 1993, and we are proud to be investing in an Australian company that is once again enabling next generation wifi connectivity for the rest of the world. Morse Micro employs over 130 people in Australia, including employees in regional New South Wales, and our investment will diversify the Australian economy, strengthen the nation’s sovereign manufacturing capability, and build local expertise in semiconductor design and innovation.”

Morse Micro (www.morsemicro.com) is a Wifi HaLow fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with offices in the USA, Taiwan, China, India, Japan and UK.