Newport Beach startup RF Nano Corp., a chipmaker that grew out of research at the University of California, Irvine, said Tuesday it raised $8 million in its second round of venture funding.
Washington, D.C. based Oxantium Ventures lead the round.
Laguna Beach’s Okapi Venture Capital also took part, bringing RF Nano’s total raised to $9.5 million.
Oxantium founder Richard Wirt is set to join RF Nano’s board.
The eight-person company is working on a more efficient way to power chips.
It uses what’s known as a nanotube to direct electrons and “charge” the radio frequency chips that go into cell phones and other wireless gear.
The electrons file into the nanotube one at a time, instead of randomly, making the chips more rugged and requiring less power. The process also protects chips from interference with other radio signals.
The end goal is to mass-produce the chips for fourth-generation cell phones and speed up Internet connections on wireless devices.
RF Nano’s customers include the Army and the Air Force.
The company shares office space with another local chipmaker, Newport Beach’s Conexant Systems Inc.
Its chips are manufactured at a plant at UC Irvine.
RF Nano was cofounded by Peter Burke, the company’s chief technology officer and an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Irvine.
It’s run by cofounder and Chief Executive Steffan McKernan, who wrote his physics doctorate thesis on nanotube technology at Princeton University.
