Overview and History of Keyssa

Keyssa, Inc., formerly WaveConnex, is an American technology company founded in 2009 and acquired by Molex in 2021.

Summary

Keyssa was a Silicon Valley-based fabless semiconductor company that designed, produced and sold ultra high-speed close-range wireless devices to the consumer electronics and industrial electronics industries.  They were the market leader for a number of years, generated over 250 patents and raised over $130M dollars.

Keyssa: The Beginnings

Keyssa was incubated at the high-speed laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the supervision of Dr. Frank Chang.  Dr. Chang was Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and during Keyssa's growth became President of National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. At UCLA, Dr. Chang began studying high-speed wireless electronic connections in 2008, when one of his students had the idea to research wireless interconnections at frequencies higher than those of traditional Wi-Fi networks. Traditional Wi-Fi channels used the 2.4 and 5.0 gigahertz (GHz) bands; the student wanted to study wireless interconnections at a 60 GHz band (Millimeter Wave - mmWave). Dr. Chang and the student thought the 60 GHz band would be the perfect technology for a new type of connector – a solid-state, wireless connector.

The Problem with Traditional Metallic Connectors

Traditional connectors suffered from several inherent limitations: reliability, due to wear or breakage of the mechanical parts; electromagnetic interference (EMI) emitted from connectors, especially at higher data rates; and the unsightly hole that resulted from the need for a receptacle. Another major issue with mechanical connectors was their size, especially as consumers demanded smaller and sleeker designs for smartphones and tablets. David Pheteplace, senior vice president at the market research firm Bishop & Associates, explained: “Connectors are one of the means by which devices access the outside world. The BIG problem is that the connectors are often larger than the space that engineers want to make available for them in these devices. If the height of the connector is more than the thickness of the smartphone, the engineer has a problem.”

The Company Hires a New CEO

Tony Fadell (iPod, iPhone, Nest) became an advisor to Keyssa, advising the company’s investors on technology, marketing, and messaging decisions, along with how to build the company and define Keyssa’s products from a smartphone designer’s perspective. Fadell also helped spearhead the search for a new CEO and recommended that the company hire Eric Almgren. The two had known each other for years, and Fadell believed Almgren was uniquely qualified to lead the company given his background in semiconductors, connectivity, intellectual property and leading startups. In 2012, Eric accepted the position of CEO. Eric quickly changed the company name from WaveConnex to Keyssa (Swedish for Kiss). From this point on, the wireless technology would be referred to as a “Kiss Technology” – referring to the near field, high-speed nature of data transfer that was enabled by the technology.  Tony Fadell subsequently invested in Keyssa and became its Chairman.

Taming a New and Complex Technology

60 GHz wireless technology had been developed and marketed as a long-distance, high-speed, point-to-point, but had never been developed and commercialized as a connector. Working with mmwave technology at such a close distance posed many technical challenges. To make Kiss technology work, the engineering team had to use principles from five different engineering disciplines: high-speed analog, RF (wireless) connectivity protocols, mechanical design, material science, and industrial design. All of these disciplines would need to play together. The fundamental challenge was that the engineering team didn’t know exactly what challenges they would run into within each discipline, especially when getting customers into mass production. Keyssa was  confronting the reality of Maxwell’s Equations and turning them into a product in a way that had never been done before.

Series C Financing: Foxconn Invests in Keyssa

Keyssa’s early financing came from angel investors as well as a VC firm. The Series C round came from a number of strategic investors including Intel, Samsung, SK hynix and Hon Hai (Foxconn). At the time of Foxconn’s investment in 2015, Dr. Galane Chen was CTO and CIO (Chief Investment Officer) for Foxconn. Joe Nieh worked in a leadership position for Dr. Chen in Foxconn’s investment group. Dr. Chen was also on the Board of Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT); FIT also participated in the Series C round.

Keyssa and Foxconn engaged in a number of strategic initiatives, including a high-speed storage application, a wireless connector for an 8K HDTV (the Keyssa link performed at 96 Gbps), and a wireless camera module.

Keyssa in Production: Notable Customers

After publicly announcing Kiss technology in 2014, Keyssa received dozens of requests from potential customers who were interested in learning more about this innovative new connector. While many of these companies were in the mobile, tablet, and PC industries, a number of the requests came from companies in completely unrelated industries.

Sample customers and applications