Wireless charging play uBeam locks in $10 million

After three years of development on what uBeam founder Meredith Perry calls "the first truly wireless charging system," her Los Angeles-based start-up has secured $10 million in Series A funding to take the venture from idea to market.

Upfront Ventures led the round, which included participation from early Perry backers including maverick entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Silicon Valley powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz.

"This (funding) takes something that has been in lab development for a long time and makes it a real product with real backing," says Perry, 25, who studied astrobiology at the University of Pennsylvania but got sidetracked by a mission to untethered the world's tech gadgets from their power cords. "The product is still one to two years out, but we don't think there will be anything else like it."

Current wireless charging options such as Powermat involve placing a cellphone or tablet on a mat. Using induction technology, energy is transferred from the mat to the device through an electromagnetic field. uBeam's eventual product will be centered around two very slim pieces of material, one that will attach to a wall or ceiling and the other to a device or its case.

"The breakthrough we will offer is the ability to power your device while it is (an as-yet unspecified) distance from the flat-panel transmitter on the wall, and you can also charge while using (your phone of tablet)," says Perry. In simplified terms, the two pieces of material talk to each other: the transmitter emits ultrasonic waves that are collected by the receiver attached to your device and then translated into electricity.

Promises Perry: "What's on the market today really doesn't cut the (charging) cord, but we will."