WiFi Developer Gets $15 Million in Funding By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter Strix Systems Inc. has raised $15 million in the company’s second major funding round. Strix, a Westlake Village-based designer and developer of wireless LAN networks, will be using the funding to ramp up its sales and marketing efforts in addition to continuing its R & D; efforts. The company has just hired a sales vice president, Steve Chappell, and it expects to boost its employee roster, currently at 45, to 70 by the first quarter of next year. Three-year-old Strix this summer launched its first product, Strix Systems Access/One Network, an entry into the burgeoning wireless networking category. So-called wireless networks allow computers to plug into a network using radio waves; hence no wires. But the radio signal in most systems must connect with an access point that is usually immobile. Strix marketing vice president Robert Jordan said that what distinguishes the company is that its systems allow users to move access points at will. The current funding round was led by Windward Ventures, with offices in San Diego and Thousand Oaks, and CMEA Ventures in San Francisco. Also participating were UV Partners in Salt Lake City and the Strix’s existing investors, Palomar Ventures in Santa Monica and El Dorado Ventures in Menlo Park. Strix so far has raised $34 million.
