News Release

Matrics Receives $20 Million in Funding From Blue-Chip Investors - Columbia, MD Tech Firm Accelerates Market Expansion Efforts in Radio Frequency Identification Solution

2003-23pc

COLUMBIA, Md. (July 14, 2003) – Matrics, a Columbia-based pioneer in the advanced development and standardization of low-cost, high-performance UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions, announced today that it has just completed a $20 million round of Series C financing from a group of financial and strategic investors led by The Carlyle Group, Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners.


The three primary investors and others contributed to the Series B financing of the company, which has met with considerable success since the commercial launch of its RFID products in March 2002, as well as Series A investor VentureHouse Group.


“During the past two years, Matrics has emerged as the clear-cut industry leader in the passive RFID market,” says Brooke Coburn, Managing Director of The Carlyle Group. “In our due diligence for this round of funding, interviews with supply chain customers ranked Matrics RFID technology head and shoulders above the rest of the field.”


Matrics offers a cohesive, RFID product portfolio that includes a proven line of passive UHF smart inlays and labels, Visibility Manager™ which manages information in the reader network, and new, advanced readers designed and packaged ready to interface with EPC-compliant tags that meet the specifications defined by the Auto-ID Center, headquartered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and enable standards compliance in U.S. and Europe, providing forward compatibility as other global air interface standards emerge. Matrics is targeting industries requiring comprehensive and global end-to-end visibility.


“With the current industry focus on optimizing supply chains through adoption of RFID enabled pallets and cases, Matrics is well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities in manufacturing, warehouse and distribution center environments because their technology is packaged in solutions for dock doors, conveyors, inventory shelves, forklift trucks and handheld units enabling companies to gain true visibility of their assets,” says Polaris Managing General Partner, Alan Spoon.


“We feel the potential for Matrics is unlimited,” says Novak Biddle Co-Founder and General Partner Jack Biddle. “In addition to the supply chain space, applications in the Homeland Security arena in support of “Safe Commerce” and airport security are prime candidates for RFID solutions.”


“Matrics chose to seek additional funding now, even though we had adequate funding to carry us through another year, because we wanted to aggressively develop solutions and expand our implementation team to meet the pace of the current market revolution, especially in the supply chain arena. Our current funding round also enables us to continue our expansion into Europe, Asia and Japan as well as go to market with our new high speed attachment method which will dramatically reduce the cost of producing RFID tags,” says Matrics CEO Piyush Sodha.


About Matrics, Inc.


Matrics is a provider of RFID technology and visibility solutions for supply chain, asset management and security. Patented wireless tracking technologies provide users with the most reliable and cost-effective solutions to provide the comprehensive visibility of assets throughout an enterprise. For more information, visit Matrics on the Web at www.matrics.com.


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