INSIDE Contactless nominated for Performance AWARD Les Echos – La Carte Corporate

INSIDE Contactless nominated for Performance AWARD Les Echos – La Carte Corporate

Selection rewards innovative companies with exceptional growth and performance

Aix en Provence, France, February 19th, 2007–INSIDE Contactless, a world leader for contactless semiconductor chips and hardware platforms, today announced that the company was nominated for the award of Performance Prize Les Echos – La Carte Corporate.

Created in 2001 and sponsored by daily business publication Les Echos and its partner La Carte Corporate, a consortium of companies Air France, American Express, and Accor, the Performance Award recognizes and rewards companies that have shown exceptional growth and outstanding commercial performance.

Nominated companies’ qualifications are analyzed by Coface Service, a member of La Carte Corporate, based on collected data regarding annual sales figures, exportation, and profitability. With only three companies chosen within each department in France, INSIDE Contactless’ impressive growth since its founding in 1995 as a fabless semiconductor company dedicated to the advancement of contactless technology, illuminates its entrepreneurial innovation and noteworthy commercial success worldwide.

Indeed, with an exponential growth in 2006 for a company with a little over 100 employees (40 of which came on board in 2006), INSIDE Contactless’ nomination for the Performance Award demonstrates its commitment to strategic, international growth in providing secure contactless payments and NFC solutions to consumers worldwide.

“INSIDE Contactless’ selection for this globally famous award recognizes more than ten years of on-going research, innovation and market vision in the field of contactless technology” declares Remy de Tonnac, CEO of INSIDE Contactless. “With major financial institutions and leading payment brands, as well as global telecom operators supporting contactless technology, we are confident there is a great future for all contactless applications, in mobile banking or more generally, in the entertainment space.”

With a 50% market share of US contactless payment chips deployment, and about 54m€ of funds raised in 9 rounds, INSIDE Contactless is now well funded to pioneer the emergence of NFC in the mobile telecom industry. Major innovation visionary VCs like Sofinnova Partners, Siparex, GIMV, Visa International, Granite Global Ventures, Vertex and Alta Berkeley are currently backing INSIDE Contactless.

About INSIDE Contactless

Founded in 1995, INSIDE is headquartered in France and with global presence in China, Singapore, Poland and the USA. INSIDE is uniquely positioned as the only fabless semiconductor company solely dedicated to the advancement of contactless technology, leveraging one of the industry’s largest intellectual property portfolios. Through strategic emphasis in Contactless Payments and Near Field Communications (NFC), INSIDE has been on a rapid growth track over the past two years with more than 12M chips delivered for contactless payment cards in the US market and a dominant position in driving NFC standardization and pilot deployments. For more information, http://www.insidecontactless.com.