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Frank Eory
iniewski
Hmmm...$12M/year a burn rate seems very high...and over 20 years ago? that would ...
Startup gains funds for LED lighting IC
Nicolas Mokhoff
9/9/2011 11:06 AM EDT
MANHASSET, NY -- Ikon Semiconductor Ltd., a Dublin-based fabless semiconductor company chasing LED lighting opportunities, has received an overall investment of 800,000 euros (about $1.1 million) from the Bank of Ireland Seed and Early Stage Equity Fund.
The syndicated investment includes 400,000 euros (more than half million dollars) by the Bank of Ireland Seed Fund with the remainder of the funds provided by Simple.ie Green BES Fund, Enterprise Ireland and private investors.
Startup Ikon is addressing the LED lighting industry. The company is focused on the residential and commercial LED bulb replacement market which industry watchers expect to grow exponentially from 80 million units in 2011 to 430 million units by 2013. Ikon will use the funds to support the development of its single-chip power converter, which resides within the bulb and powers the light-emitting diode light.
“Ikon Semiconductor Limited is a true example of how an investment of this type can support a home-grown Irish company to strategically grow in the LED lighting market, which is critical for the company and also as part of Ireland’s economic recovery,” Donal Duffy, Head of Enterprise Ireland Relations, Bank of Ireland, in a statement.
“The LED lighting market is a high growth area and this funding will allow us to make significant progress over the coming 12 months and capitalize on this market potential,” said Conor McAuliffe, CEO of Ikon Semiconductor.
The company was founded by semiconductor industry veterans who are applying proprietary digital control techniques to replace traditional analog control methods. Ikon’s first product, which will be available in early 2012, will target the residential and commercial bulb replacement market.
Over 12 billion incandescent light bulbs are sold annually, lighting accounts for almost 19 percent of global energy consumption which equates to the output of approximately 1000 large electric power plants, according to International Energy Agency (IEA).
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www.ikonsemi.com
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The syndicated investment includes 400,000 euros (more than half million dollars) by the Bank of Ireland Seed Fund with the remainder of the funds provided by Simple.ie Green BES Fund, Enterprise Ireland and private investors.
Startup Ikon is addressing the LED lighting industry. The company is focused on the residential and commercial LED bulb replacement market which industry watchers expect to grow exponentially from 80 million units in 2011 to 430 million units by 2013. Ikon will use the funds to support the development of its single-chip power converter, which resides within the bulb and powers the light-emitting diode light.
“Ikon Semiconductor Limited is a true example of how an investment of this type can support a home-grown Irish company to strategically grow in the LED lighting market, which is critical for the company and also as part of Ireland’s economic recovery,” Donal Duffy, Head of Enterprise Ireland Relations, Bank of Ireland, in a statement.
“The LED lighting market is a high growth area and this funding will allow us to make significant progress over the coming 12 months and capitalize on this market potential,” said Conor McAuliffe, CEO of Ikon Semiconductor.
The company was founded by semiconductor industry veterans who are applying proprietary digital control techniques to replace traditional analog control methods. Ikon’s first product, which will be available in early 2012, will target the residential and commercial bulb replacement market.
Over 12 billion incandescent light bulbs are sold annually, lighting accounts for almost 19 percent of global energy consumption which equates to the output of approximately 1000 large electric power plants, according to International Energy Agency (IEA).
Related links and articles:
www.ikonsemi.com
News articles:
Report: Lighting apps boost LED usage
Ireland Forms Funds To Innovate out of Trouble
Silicon Labs buys Irish sensor startup
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goafrit
9/9/2011 12:00 PM EDT
That is no money. It is like the one the company that just filed bankrupt Syltronics that makes solar panel received from Obama admin. They got $536K. This is no money. Govts should put money in ee companies even as the Chinese are doing
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subman
9/9/2011 3:31 PM EDT
Obama gave the solar panel company Solyndra something like $535 Million, that is some real money. If you were referring to that, then your off by x1000. That is as big or bigger than what the Chinese are doing for individual companies, certainly seems like that should have been enough to get a business going.
Not sure why giving this piddly amount of money is even worth an article, unless there is an order of magnitude larger follow-on investment planned.
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peter.clarke
9/9/2011 12:21 PM EDT
In Europe many people think $1.1 million for a technology investment is a LOT of money.
Typically VC investments in European companies are smaller than those in U.S. companies at the same stage of development by a factor of 2 or more.
I often think these amounts will barely pay for business cards and office furniture, let alone serious engineering. So how will Ikon get a digital chip out the door on this money?
Well maybe they will get more money.
The founders are experienced with backgrounds at Parthus Technologies, so maybe they have a lot of their own money to pay for masks and wafer runs.
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kinnar
9/9/2011 1:18 PM EDT
The amount landed by the Bank means that the LEDs are getting accepted more and more, at many different levels, in this case the banks has provided funding for a driver IC that is too good for technological development.
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sharps_eng
9/9/2011 6:12 PM EDT
I would be interested to learn what their proposition is, what can they bring to the party. Mind you I used to think we'd tried all the ways to arrange FETs and inductors untul Ćuk came along. That is the fascination of analog design. Anyone know what they offer? The website is a little quiet...
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peter.clarke
9/12/2011 9:56 AM EDT
Aint that the way with startups
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selinz
9/11/2011 12:23 PM EDT
You could probably fund a group of 4-8 designers and if they knew what they were doing, they could come up with a design. This would obviously be fabless. This sounds like they're trying to kick off an effort, not completely fund a company.
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hm
9/11/2011 3:48 PM EDT
That is not big money. However, it is good for designers to begin work. If idea and technology is promising, more money will follow.
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nicolas.mokhoff
9/12/2011 9:11 AM EDT
Maybe that's a better way to fund start ups: show me what you got, prove it and I'll advance more. In today's economy it makes sense and real ideas will come to fruition in new products soon after. But maybe it is also cautionary moves by Europe's VCs, in general.
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peter.clarke
9/12/2011 9:57 AM EDT
That is the standard way VCs and startups work. It just seems that in the U.S. the startups are good at getting twice as much using the argument that it is better to find out if the idea is a good one or a bad one quickly.
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iniewski
9/12/2011 2:46 PM EDT
Not sure what the argument is about. Pretty much everyone starts up small, your own funds ,family,angel money etc. Sure,$1M is not much to develop a chip but you can probably get close to a tapeout or do an MPW run. More money might follow if the product looks attractive a year from now. As Peter says there are regional difference in level of funding but the mechanism of getting the company off the ground are pretty much the same everywhere...Kris
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Robotics Developer
9/12/2011 6:21 PM EDT
I am surprised by the small amount invested here myself! When I was just a young engineer (ah the good old days 1980s) I was part of a startup company with 25 employees and a capital burn rate of (if memory serves) upwards of 1 million a month. That included saleries, office space, significant numbers of prototypes, outsourced mechanical design, etc.. Still, it did not seem like we had more money than we needed in those days. The founders must be spending a lot of their own money for this startup.
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iniewski
9/12/2011 6:47 PM EDT
Hmmm...$12M/year a burn rate seems very high...and over 20 years ago? that would be like $30M today...what was the name of that so well funded start-up? Kris
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Frank Eory
9/12/2011 7:45 PM EDT
I agree, $1M/month seems pretty high for a startup in the 80s.
Today, a very small startup -- say around 10 employees, maybe 6 of whom are engineers -- should be able to get by on a burn rate of $100k/month, maybe a little less in Ireland, where salary costs are lower than in the U.S.
But that low burn rate doesn't include much for equipment leases, and certainly doesn't include mask costs for an IC development.
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