The share price has been set at 50 pence — about 75 cents — according to Ellis Smith, chief executive officer of TransEDA (Eastleigh, England). Nearly 41 million shares have been placed with more than 30 institutional investors in London and elsewhere, representing about 80 percent of the company, Smith said. The shares will be traded on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London exchange.

TransEDA's offering is now set to value the company at $30 million to $35 million and to raise approximately $4 million for further product development and expansion.

"The AIM float is attractive to us because you can issue shares up to the value of your company without shareholder approval," Smith said. "It means acquisitions can be done much faster than if you had to get shareholder approval."

Founded in 1992, TransEDA develops and sells software used to verify circuit design descriptions. Its functional-verification tools perform code coverage, test suite optimization, state machine verification and rule checking.