Clock-tree design startup raises $9 million

The three-year old company launched a tool for clock-tree design at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in 2005 and counts Broadcom Corp. amongst its established customers.

Azuro (Mountain View, Calif.) said it plans to use the money to expand its management team, broaden the capability of its PowerCentric product and to increase sales revenues. Paul Cunningham, Azuro CEO, said the company plans a major new release of PowerCentric during the second quarter, prior to DAC 2006.

The round was led by Miramar Venture Partners; existing investors Benchmark Capital and TTP Ventures also participated fully. In addition, Heiner Sussner, managing partner at Miramar Ventures, has joined Azuro’s board of directors.

Cunningham said he is gratified that both Benchmark Capital and TTP Ventures chose to participate again in the company's second round of funding, something that he believes demonstrates that the company is headed in the right direction.

Cunningham added that he believes the VC community is maturing. "Compared with 10 years ago, VCs are much better equipped to filter out 'bad bets' as opposed to good ones," he said.

Given the greater maturity and better eye of VCs, Cunningham believes that receiving funding in the current climate is a better validation of a company's business model than it was in previous year.

Azuro was founded in 2002 by Cunningham and Steev Wilcox, Azuro's chief architect, who met while getting their Ph.D.'s in computer science at the University of Cambridge. The company has 36 employees, two-thirds of which remain at its development center in Cambridge.

Azuro has raised a total of $13.3 million in venture funding since its formation. The company’s PowerCentric product is software for the implementation of low-power clock networks on digital semiconductor chips.