Venture capital firm Pond has made a fourth exit of a portfolio company in six months after Gennum Corporation’s acquisition of Nanotech Semiconductor for $34 million (£20.8 million).
Venture capital firm Pond has made a fourth exit of a portfolio company in six months after Gennum Corporation’s acquisition of Nanotech Semiconductor for $34 million (£20.8 million).
The sale of the Bristol-based business could also net a further $6 million for Pond and Nanotech’s other investors, including European private equity firm Atlantic Bridge, if certain revenue targets are met in the next year.
Founded in May 2003 by Gary Steele, Nanotech is a semiconductor company that develops, manufactures and sells analogue and mixed-signal driver and receiver integrated circuits (ICs) for fibre-optic communications. Steele was also the founder and chief executive of Microcosm, which delivered the first high-speed optical networking components based on pure-CMOS process technology.
Pond and Atlantic Bridge initially backed the company during a seed investment round in 2004. Nanotech’s acquisition by Gennum, a Canadian technology company, follows the exits of Pond portfolio companies Broadway Networks, 4Home and Gigle Networks in the fourth quarter of last year.
Charles Irving, co-founder and general partner of Pond, comments, ‘Exits like this prove that it is possible to generate excellent returns even in a tough market environment by carefully selecting promising start-ups in the UK and elsewhere, globally commercialising their technology, and providing a well-defined and disciplined route to acquisition.’
Franz Fink, president and chief executive of Gennum, adds, ‘Through this acquisition, Gennum has significantly strengthened our mixed-signal and optical product portfolio and added critical CMOS technology capability enabling our company to address a broader range of high growth networking markets such as ‘fibre to the home’, ethernet and consumer optics.’
