May 4--A recent nationwide venture-capital survey showed that no Central Florida companies received big-bucks investments in the first quarter. But within days, a local company noted that it had been left off the list.

Melbourne-based Imbera Electronics said it received

$15 million from professional venture funds during the quarter, yet the deal was nowhere to be found in the MoneyTree survey produced each quarter by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters.

Turns out there's a simple explanation: MoneyTree polls only U.S.-based venture firms, and Imbera secured its financing from European investors.

Whatever the source, $15 million is clearly a nice chunk of change for Imbera, which designs and produces next-generation semiconductors for the consumer-electronics industry.

Most of Imbera's newfound money will help it establish a semiconductor plant in South Korea, according to Chief Executive Officer Jeff Baloun, who leads the company's executive team in Melbourne.

He said it will take the company to the next level, from research and development to factory production. "This funding round was critical for us to take our technology to the place we're going next," Baloun said.

Imbera expects its new microchip design to play a big role in next-generation cell phones and other consumer electronics. Imbera chips have electronic components embedded inside the printed-circuit board, unlike conventional chips that have multiple layers of features welded on top of the board.

That means a cell phone with an Imbera chip has the potential for far more bells and whistles than its conventional counterparts, Baloun said.

"The cell-phone guys are looking to put cooler and cooler things on the shelves to capture more market share," he said. "Our chips make it possible to produce a much denser system inside the same-size box. And that kind of miniaturization opens up a whole new dimension for electronics."

Unfortunately for Central Florida, it doesn't look as if Imbera's good fortune financially will translate into local growth any time soon.

After being hired by Imbera last year, Baloun chose to set up shop in Melbourne, where he had graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology. But the Melbourne headquarters has only Baloun and a handful of senior executives. The plant is in South Korea, and the company's research-and-development facility is in Finland.

Imbera does have another local connection: Its law firm is Foley & Lardner in Orlando, which also represented the company in its venture-capital negotiations.

Melbourne-based Harris Corp. has received a $20-million contract to supply advanced combat radios to Poland's special military forces.

Terms call for Harris to provide the Polish Ministry of National Defense with a variety of tactical-radio systems for its land and special ops forces. Harris' RF Communications Division, based in Rochester, N.Y., is the prime contractor for the tactical-radio program known as Falcon, which includes handheld, multiband backpack and high-frequency backpack systems.

The Polish contract is the latest in a series of deals potentially worth billions of dollars for Harris, which has been providing the radios to the U.S. armed forces and other allied countries around the world.

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