Cadence backs startup in $31 million VC round

LONDON — EDA software company Cadence Design Systems Inc. has joined in a 25 million euro (about $31 million) Series B round of funding for Nemerix, a fabless semiconductor company developing global positioning system chipsets.

Nemerix (Lugano, Switzerland) closed a Series A round of funding at 9 million euro (about $11.2 million) in July 2004. All existing Series A investors — Atila Ventures Auriga Partners PolyTechnos Venture Partners, and VI Partners — participated in the funding round. Cadence Design Systems and Oak Investment Partners joined as new investors. Nemerix has a proprietary architecture that it claims reduces power consumption and chip size offering an improvement of over 70 percent versus its closest competitors. The money would be used to for product development and international expansion.

The company’s technical team originates from the renowned ETH Zurich and the company has appointed Vincent Mouret as chief executive officer, replacing Ken Hawk, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who led the company in 2004.

“Nemerix has proven itself over the past year, gaining significant traction, winning major design-ins, and attracting an exceptional team...the addition of Oak and significant capital will go far to help Nemerix realize its full potential,” said Eric Achtmann, managing partner at PolyTechnos.

“Nemerix proves that it is possible to build world-class semiconductor companies in Europe combining exceptional European technical know-how with American market expertise is a winning combination,” said Stephen Rees, chairman of Nemerix and President of Atila Venture Partners.