Honolulu startup planning to expand
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
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The 12-employee company received most of the money from Menlo Ventures, a multibillion-dollar Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and Hawaiian Electric Industries, said Tareq Hoque, Landmark's president.
The upfront cash investment brings to $3.12 million the total money received in 2003 by Landmark, making the company one of the state's most successful venture capital fund-raisers this year.
Landmark is developing wireless network hardware based on military technology. The technology was developed using $50 million from the military and other government sources.
Hoque said Landmark will use the money to expand operations to several dozen employees by the end of the year, and wants to add engineers, marketing and sales staff, and administrators.
The company has not yet developed or sold a product, but Hoque said its prototype hardware is almost ready for use by "early adopters."
Landmark is producing a commercial version of "PacketHop," a wireless network technology developed with government financing at the Stanford Research Institute.
PacketHop would replace the expensive and complex infrastructure of traditional wireless networks — which actually are heavily wired, behind the scenes — with a "mesh network," a group of two-way wireless boxes that transmit and receive digital information.
Landmark founder Ike Nassi, the company's chairman, formerly was senior vice president at Apple in charge of Macintosh operating system software development.
For more information on jobs at Landmark, call 528-0007.
