| Website | alientechnology.com |
| Category | Enterprise |
| Employees | |
| Founded | 1994 |
| TOTAL | $197M |
| FUNDING TOTAL | $197M |
| Venture Round, 7/05 Digital Bandwidth Advanced Equities Sunbridge Partners Miami Valley Venture Fund TradeInvest Asset Management Equitek Capital | $66M |
| Series D, 4/07 Advanced Equities Sunbridge Partners Rho Capital Partners IndoUS Venture Partners | $33M |
| Series E, 2008 | $40M |
| Series F, 10/08 Advanced Equities New Enterprise Associates Sunbridge Partners | $38M |
| Venture Round, 12/09 | $9.48M |
| Venture Round, 3/10 Advanced Equities New Enterprise Associates Sunbridge Partners | $10.9M |
The Morgan Hill, Calif.-based company makes radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip tags and readers that scan the data stored on those chips from dozens of feet away. Its claim to fame is “fluidic self-assembly,†a futuristic manufacturing method developed by UC Berkeley’s John S. Smith, who founded Alien in 1994.
Alien’s factories in Fargo, N.D, and San Jose have machines that take the tiny RFID chips and put them into a river of goo. The goo has chemicals that make the chips align themselves into little packages where they can be sealed and attached to a radio antenna. (If you don’t like my technical description of goo, there’s more information here. Basically, the chips flow through a river until they settle into little receptor slots on a piece of film. Then they’re sealed and tethered to an antenna).
