Shocking Technologies raises $15.2 Million in Series C of Funding

Shocking Technologies, the company based in San Jose, California, has recently announced the end of the third round of funding which has brought the company an amount of $15.2 million which is going to be used in order to make electric-shock-proof electronic circuit boards. This funding round has reunited investors from Littelfuse, Arch Ventures, ATA Ventures, Balch Hill Capital, Skylake Incuvest, Vista Ventures and some private investors. The company is going to use the money in order to build additional manufacturing capacity as for it to be able to meet the demand on the market.

The company specializes in using nanotechnologies in order to protect electronic products from those accidental sparks which can lead to the destruction of gadgets such as iPhones or laptops. Shocking Technologies already has a history in providing elements which are intended to protect the world’s circuit boards and almost everything there is in the electronic market, such as the electrostatic discharge (ESD) that allegedly brought down the Hindenburg blimp in 1937.

In order to protect against discharges, the company embeds a plastic coating that it calls XStatic in an electronic circuit board or chip package. Discharges are caused by the sparks who occur when a strong electric field creates an ionized conductive channel in the air. Even though that electric shock can only hardly be felt by the human body, they can cause real damages to the electronic equipment you are using. The traditional ESD protection systems include providing surge suppressors in the electrical outlets and inside the electronic equipment which is being used. But this system only provides protection for 3 percent of the cases. When it comes to smaller devices, it is even more difficult to provide protection due to the fact that they provide only limited space and due to the device’s physics. These elements force the producers to choose between elements such as reliability, signal integrity and functionality. But the developers at Shocking Technologies state that they can provide solutions which guarantee 100 percent protection by reducing the number of components which can be found in an electronic device.

The XStatic material functions as an insulator when it comes to normal circuit operations, but turns conductive in those moments when the voltage grows beyond a predefined threshold. After the moment when the voltage drops, the material goes back to function as an insulator. The result is that all the chips to be found on the board are protected from ESD voltage which is likely to cause damage. Also, the fact that the material is covered in copper foils help to protect the boards and the chips.

The company was founded in 2006 by Lex Kosowsky and Robert Fleming. By now, Shocking Technologies has more than 100 patents and lots of pending applications for patents. In the previous funding rounds, the company has raised $32.2 million from investors such as Littlefuse, Arch Venture Partners, ATA Ventures, Skylake Incuvest, Vista Ventures, Balch Hill Capital, and some angels. Rivals include On Semiconductor, California Micro Devices, NXP, Cooper Bussman and Tyco Electronics.