mCube has raised $37 million to make accelerometers smaller and cheaper

Entrepreneur Ben Lee has been developing a new type of semiconductor process that makes tiny accelerometers. When embedded in devices these little machines could change the types of games played on cheap handsets or eliminate the spasm-like head nod used to activate Google Glass. As the CEO of mCube, a five-year old startup, Lee has just raised a $37 million Series C round of funding from existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, MediaTek, iD Ventures America, and DAG Ventures. New investors include Keytone Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, and Korea Investment Partners, bringing the total money his startup has raised to $70 million.

Not too many startups these days make large quantities of tangible objects. MCube decided not to say much until it had produced 60 million things. To be specific, mCube says it has shipped more than 60 million extremely small semiconductor chips–comparable to a grain of sand, not the fingernail-sized variety that the likes of Intel and its competitors sell. MCube, which is based in San Jose, Calif., is one of very few semiconductor companies to receive venture funding in recent years. It is announcing a $37 million infusion on Wednesday. The company makes motion-sensor chips, also known as accelerometers, which are used in just about every smartphone these days. The devices help detect speed and movement by the physical motion of tiny components on the chips, a category of product known by the acronym MEMS, for micro-electro-mechanical systems. A special attraction, says CEO Ben Lee, is a proprietary design that allows mCube to undercut the production cost of other makers of accelerometer chips. At the same time, a large market is emerging beyond the smartphones and tablets that have used most mCube chips today–in smartwatches, activity monitors and other devices that people use on the go.