Prelude, Esprit lead further $13.25m "B" funding round in Newnham
Prelude Trust plc (PDT.L), the investment trust specialising in early stage, tech-based businesses, and its manager Esprit Capital Partners, have led an extended "B" series funding round of $13.25m for network graphics chip specialist Newnham Technology Inc.
Prelude has also added the company to its portfolio, investing $3.5m (£1.9m) in the Palo Alto, California headquartered firm which has its main R&D and product development activities in Cambridge (working under the Newnham Research Ltd moniker). Prelude now has a 13.5% shareholding in Newnham.
Newnham is a fabless semiconductor company providing solutions for networking and/or connecting multiple displays to laptops and PCs.
Existing investors Atlas Venture and Benchmark Capital also participated in the funding round.
New board member
Esprit Capital Partners' Alan Duncan (pictured), who has joined Newnham's board said, "Newnham's NIVO (Network In, Video Out) technology establishes a new standard for interactive true-colour networked displays seamlessly extending the rich PC user experience to multiple wire and wireless displays on a network.
"Newnham's first application for its NIVO technology in USB-based products has attracted considerable industry interest and can be found in the latest universal docking stations being sold by Kensington, a leading computer peripherals company."
Mr Duncan said this deal was the first investment where Prelude and Esprit have teamed up to lead a major new financing round for a later stage company. Esprit is the new independent venture capital fund manager created by the merger in June of the Prelude Ventures and Cazenove Private Equity teams. It has $500m of assets under management (including Prelude Trust plc and the Esprit Capital I fund). He said they have been tracking Newnham's progress for more than a year.
Recently appointed Newnham CEO Hamid Farzaneh said the company's technology was well positioned to become the de facto standard for display networking and connectivity.
This funding, which takes the total raised since it was founded three years ago to $21.75m, will allow the firm to expand operations and accelerate new generations of its technology, enabling it to establish a leading position in a number of major new high volume markets, he said.
Recruiting
The Cambridge R&D facility is currently recruiting engineers. In a report in electronicsweekly.com on Tuesday Mr Farzaneh said that “One of the things that is a limit to our growth is our ability to attract talent.
"We are currently hiring aggressively, with about a dozen positions open in Cambridge - most of them are for software and hardware engineers. We have a very high standard and do not want to lower the bar,” he told the website.
He said that if staff could not be found in Cambridge the firm would recruit elsewhere and transfer people in.
Prelude Trust's share price was unchanged by midday at 110p, delivering a market capitalisation of around £42m.
19th July, 2006
