Startup TrueDemand Software Inc. launched this week, and announced $6 million in Series A funding to support the rollout of its Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) software later this year.
The company, which was founded last year, is backed by investors Mayfield and Bay Partners.
RFID has been much hyped as a tracking technology that's hardier, easier to implement, and more flexible than bar-code scanning. The technology is taking hold among retailers and manufacturers. Wal-Mart, for example, gave its top 100 suppliers a January 1st deadline for RFID compliance.
However, dealing with the vast amounts of data generated by tracking RFID-tagged items is easier said than done, with inventory movements potentially generating millions of transactions. Earlier this year, analyst firm IDC warned that the success of future RFID rollouts rests on the ability of enterprise networks to cope with the influx of data (see IDC: RFID Success Depends on Networks).
Eric Peters, the TrueDemand CEO, tells NDCF that the cash influx will go towards rolling out the companys first products, which will be launched in the fall. At this stage, Peters is keeping mum about specific details, but he claims TrueDemands software will sit on top of IBM Corp.s (NYSE: IBM) WebSphere middleware and work with Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) SQL and IBM DB2 databases.
