UK Technology Startups

Check out David Manners' piece on investment in UK technology firms in 2008: UK tech investment rises in 2008 - Ascendant Technology

The technology-focused investment group Ascendant Technology carried out the research and it reported that technology investment in the UK and Ireland started strongly in 2008 with an increase in both the value and volume of deals.

"Although the number of active number of active investors declined, VCs and private investors increased the capital they invested in Q1 by 15 per cent to £357m, backing 13 per cent more companies which rose to 72 businesses", said Stuart McKnight, CEO of Ascendant.

Richard Irving, a partner at venture capital firm Pond Venture Partners, considers the purchase of PA Semi and Montalvo's technology assets, by Apple and Sun respectively.

The big surprises last week in Silicon Valley were Apple's purchase of PA Semi, and Sun buying Montalvo's technology assets.

Why did these OEMs buy their own processor? How much did they pay and did that constitute a good exit for the entrepreneurs and investors?

Until recently the conventional wisdom was that the x86 architecture reigned supreme in the computing space (all PCs and most servers), ARM-based processors led in mobile and low-power apps, and only comms infrastructure and industrial control remained CPU battlegrounds. Then Qualcomm launched Snapdragon and Intel its Atom, and the embedded space suddenly faced competition.

Check out this story straight from the IET/GSA Semiconductor Forum.

David Manners writes about the future of VC-backed semiconductor start-ups. In spite of the fact that there is some pessimism in some quarters of the industry, there are some industry insiders who paint a much brighter picture about the sector.

You can view the article here.