A six-year-old offshoot of the University of Auckland's engineering department has won a $US4 million investment from cellphone giant Samsung.
The Korean company's venture capital arm, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, is buying into PowerbyProxi's board.
PowerbyProxi chairman and chief executive Greg Cross said getting such an investment from a world-leading consumer electronics brand was an endorsement of his company's technology.
"It's exciting on a couple of levels. The $US4 million provides capital that we need to grow our company to the next level," he said.
"Strategically it provides a major endorsement of our technology in terms of Samsung having chosen to invest in us."
The company offered Samsung a "deep and very strong" patent portfolio and a "solution" to meet the needs of the market, Mr Cross said.
"Specifically what we're talking about is a wireless charging system, initially for smartphones," he said.
"If we roll forward to the second half of 2014, potentially you're going to start to see smartphones that have got the wireless charging receivers built inside the phone."
That meant that instead of having to plug phones into a charger and then into the wall, they could simply be placed on a charging pad.
