My colleague Melanie Reynolds recently spoke to a California-based start-up that appears to be flying. The firm is shipping a million chips a month and only founded has recently as 2004.
The reason for that success appears to be luck. Telegent Systems they happened across a need and knew they had the technology to fill it.
The firm’s story reminds me a little bit of CSR, which has become massively successful and the world leader in Bluetooth chips in a frighteningly short space of time.
Most start-ups in the electronics industry are slow-cookers really and the ones that see sudden, massive growth stand out from the crowd. Telegent has had $50m in funding so far, which compares to our own UK-grown Icera that has had $142.5m. Icera was founded in 2002.
I’m not sure what lesson we can draw from Telegent’s success but if you’re a fables semiconductor start-up, mobile phones are possible one of the few commodities that can see you in serious volume with just a small part of the market.
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