EARLY STAGE TECHNOLOGY
INVESTING
TTP
Ventures’ first venture capital fund was launched in February 1999. The fund has a total commitment of £35m.
TTP Ventures invests in UK or Western European companies which are either at an early stage in the development of their business or are undergoing a transition process. Its current portfolio includes:
As a 'fabless' semiconductor company, Alphamosaic rapidly established its chips as world leading processors for multimedia applications on high volume consumer and cellular portable products. The chips offer high quality video capture and display, gaming, audio and camera features. The first processor was designed into a number of phones in the Far East and, subsequently, in Europe by Samsung and others.
In September 2004, the company was sold to Broadcom [NASDAQ: BRCM] for $123m.
Argenta offers medicinal chemistry, biochemical and biological screening services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. In addition, Argenta is developing compounds against disease targets identified by Imperial College and other academic and commercial collaborators. Following the acquisition of Etiologics in late 2004, the company is concentrating these activities on the development of therapeutics for respiratory diseases, and in particular COPD.
Azuro is an exciting new EDA company developing ground breaking technology for lower power chip design. The company was founded in March 2002, and raised initial seed funding of $0.3m from TTP Ventures and a group of angel investors based in Cambridge, UK. In May 2003 the company announced $4m Series A venture funding round led by Benchmark Capital. The company is incorporated in the USA and has product development offices in Cambridge, UK.
Cambridge Semiconductor, a spin out from Cambridge University, develops power integrated circuits based on its disruptive semiconductor technology. Advantages over current technologies include higher efficiency operation and integration of multiple high voltage switches with low voltage logic. These can give substantial cost, size and weight savings in a wide range of power conversion and power control applications.
Cogentium supplies a range of decision software products and solutions. Its principal offering is a discrete process simulation software package, which is designed to be as easy to use and as understandable as a spreadsheet. The applications include manufacturing, oil and gas, call centre management, prison management and healthcare.
Element
14, a fabless IC company, span out of Acorn Computers in 1999 to develop
communications ICs for high density broadband access systems.
In November 2000, the company was sold to Broadcom [NASDAQ: BRCM] for $250m.
Oxford Diffraction (now Varian)
Oxford Diffraction is a spin out from Oxford Instruments plc in conjunction with Kuma Diffraction, an innovative X-ray diffraction equipment manufacturer from Wroclaw, Poland. Oxford Diffraction specialises in low power, high flux, X-ray sources and very precise and sensitive digital X-ray area detectors which, combined with precision engineering, cryogenic and software skills, create leading products in the fields of both small molecule analysis and proteomics.
In April 2008, the company was acquired by Varian [NASDAQ: VARI] for $37m in cash plus up to a further $10m, subject to performance.
ShoZu gives consumers two-way access to photo sharing websites, mobile blogs, RSS feeds, videocasts, podcasts and other web content directly from their handsets - whether to send images taken with their cameraphones or to receive the latest music video from their favorite band - through a single open application.
This creates stickiness of web communities, value-added offerings for handset manufacturers and wireless carriers, and a framework for delivering mobile advertising directly to the cellphone based on user activity and interests.
TeraView was spun out of Toshiba's Cambridge Research Laboratory in 2001 to commercialise a revolutionary new method of spectroscopic imaging, based on terahertz light. This is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwaves that has previously be largely untapped commercially. It has worked closely with scientists at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.
TeraView is the world's leading company in this field. Lead applications include pharmaceuticals research and QA, security and medical imaging.
ZBD is a provider of display technology to electronic product OEMs who need very low power and excellent visual quality. Integrating with existing LCD manufacturing processes, the technology allows ZBD to leverage off the continuing investment and innovation being made in this area. The company is a spin out from QinetiQ (previously DERA, the UK's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency), which has been a key centre for research and development in the LCD field.
The initial application is for electronic labels for retail applications.
