Venture capital (VC) investment in UK semiconductor companies is increasing according to Ascendant, the technology-focused corporate finance advisers.

“Semiconductors had a particularly good first half,” Stuart McKnight, managing director of Ascendant, told Electronics Weekly.

The biggest deals of the first half were Frontier Silicon (£15m), Transitive Technologies (£14m), Clinphone (£12.5m), PicoChip (£11.3m) and AePona (£10.4m).

Out of a total of £242m of venture capital invested in UK technology companies, about a quarter went to the semiconductor and optoelectronics sectors, according to Ascendant.

The year started slowly with only two chip VC deals done in Q1, for Plastic Logic and Frontier Silicon.

However, there was a rash of deals in April including Elixent (£8m), Icera (£5.3m), Intense Photonics (£2.5m), Microstencil (£1m) and Quantum Filament Technologies (£0.8m).

Despite the strengthening investment climate in Q2, the first half of 2005 has seen UK high-tech VC investment falling by 2.5 per cent compared to the first half of 2004.

www.ascendant.ltd.uk