Recently in Start-Ups Category

Useless technologies get created all too often, while valued uniqueness is all too rare, says the CEO of Imagination Technologies, Hossein Yassaie.

The SuVolta approach to reducing leakage looks attractive because it adopts a new approach - looking at levelling up the variations in the threshold voltage of transistors.

While the UK VCs talk about a constipated investment cycle due to lack of IPOs, the US VCs are talking boom-time again.

It's good to hear of a young chip company pursuing wildly different applications with the same generic technology.

UK VCs are a resilient breed. At a time of fairly general uncertainty, they've displayed robust confidence in British high-tech.

A great endorsement of this country's technological talent is the decision by one of the world's sexiest IC companies, Inphi, to set up a mixed signal design centre in Northamptonshire. And it's a decision which should give Lord Mandy, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pause for thought.

There's nothing ever good about losing your job but sometimes, as one door closes, another opens. When the UK electronic majors - GEC, Plessey, STC, Ferranti - sank into oblivion, many departing engineers set up businesses. So Freescale's moves to help leaving staff become entrepreneurs may stimulate start-up activity.

The IPO market is sputtering back into action with Morgan Stanleyforecasting 35 to 40 floats in Europe in the next two years, with 127 floats in the worldwide IPO pipeline according to Thomson Reuters, and with a  big IPO success yesterday in the US with software start-up LogMeIn.

The trouble with government agencies is that they are run by people with consensual mind-sets. So when the government establishes an agency to foster innovation, it's establishing an oxymoron.

Angels are investing £1 billion a year in the UK, according to the British Business Angels Association (BBAA), with an average rate of return of 22 per cent over four years.

Too much money can be a negative. It can spoil children, push trustafarians into debauchery, give a false sense of security, and inflate the heck out of an economy, but can VC funds have too much money?

There are some companies you really want to succeed. One of these, for me, is the Japanese flash memory start-up, Genusion.

Four weeks ago I was in Manchester at a meeting of the North-West Technology Network (NWTN). The meeting was mostly devoted to high-tech start-up activity. Last week it occurred to me that we had missed a trick.

It was quite shocking to hear last week that the most difficult part of the start-up process for a UK high-tech start-up was getting an introduction to a venture capitalist. In the end the company had to pay to get an introduction.

What we want in the UK, according to Simon Bond who runs the SETsquared programme for stimulating hi-tec start-ups, is some good exits. The techies have done their stuff building great technology, now the market needs to reward their backers with some juicy IPOs and trade sales.

Venture Capitalism has its fashions and, at the moment, it's the low season. That was the message from Mike Gera, General Partner of Pond Ventures, at the recent Silicon South-West 'Perfect Timing' conference.

Good financial news is becoming a rarity these days so it's excellent to hear that British high-tech VCs didn't flinch during the year. Up to the end of Q3 they'd put £765 million into UK and Irish high-tech start-ups which, if  Q4 was going to be normal which it probably won't be, would see the year closing out at £1 billion which is about the same as recent years.

Further to a previous post and a follow-up post on how to make a fortune while sitting in the pub, a clever mate came up with these three ideas for new iPhone applications while sitting in the pub at the weekend.

Further to my earlier blog on making-millions-while-sitting-in-the-pub type businesses, it seems that Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Silicon Valley's top venture capital company, has put $100 million into a fund which will exclusively back start-up companies developing iPhone applications. Naturally, it's called the iFund.