startupmania

Kfar-Saba based start-up N-Trig, which is developing touch technology for PC computers, has announced that it has signed a deal with Lenovo to incorporate, DuoSense, the company’s proprietary multi-touch technology, into Lenovo’s ThinkPad 400 laptops.

N-Trig’s CEO is Amihai Ben-David, and among their investors are big names such as Microsoft as well as several prominent venture capital funds. Among these are Evergreen Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, and Moris Kahn’s Aurum Ventures.

According to our sources, this is the biggest deal N-Trig has ever signed. Furthermore, this is the first time DuoSense will be incorporated into a “standard” laptop, having been utilized only for tablet computers up until now. DueSense is currently being used in Dell’s Latitude XT and XT2 computers as well as HP’s TouchSmart tx2.

The DueSense technology allows the user to preform certain actions using two-finger gestures on the Windows Vista and XP Pro operating systems, the ones provided with the T400s. According to N-Trig, Windows 7 will incorporate 4-finger gestures, which will increase the number of actions one can preform with his fingers alone.

N-Trig’s CEO for Asia-Pacific, Lior Lovinski said, “We are happy to work with Lenovo and are satisfied with their decision to incorporate multi-touch technology into notebook computers. We have a rare opportunity to sit back and watch a new computing standard come into being before our eyes.” He adds, “Users will no longer have to reach for a mouse, that old-fashioned controller which plagues the user on business trips and meetings.”

In a similar vein to its HP and Dell deals, N-Trig will receive a commission for each DueSense-enabled computer Lenovo sells. Company spokespeople preferred not to indulge in revenue estimation. Regardless, it seems that in light of the HP and Dell deals, the profit potential for the company, in 2010 alone, seems to stand in the tens of millions of dollars range, at least.

We should also note that the company is currently undergoing a recruitment drive. N-Trig foresees that by the end of the year, the number of personnel employed by the company should reach 150 – a 50% increase than the beginning of the year.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum