Energy Micro secures $13 million funding
Oslo, Norway, March 2010 – Energy Micro®, the energy friendly microcontroller company, has announced that it has secured an investment of $13 million from Northzone Ventures and Investinor in its first external funding round.
The investment will be used to continue the development of Energy Micro’s microcontroller product portfolio, to develop and bring to market a family of energy friendly radio products and to expand the organisation and sales channels to support future high growth.
Energy Micro launched its first product, the 32-bit EFM32 Gecko microcontroller family, in October 2009. Consuming a quarter of the energy of existing 8-, 16- or 32-bit microcontrollers, the products have been well received in energy sensitive application sectors, including energy metering, home and building automation, alarm and security systems and medical equipment.
Torleif Ahlsand, General Partner of Northzone Ventures, who joins Energy Micro’s board of directors as Chairman, said: "Northzone has followed Energy Micro’s progress for more than a year now, and I am very excited about the company’s prospects. Energy Micro is the first investment in our recently announced Northzone VI fund, and it gives us a tremendous start."
He continued: "Energy Micro has all the ingredients in place to make it a real success; with differentiated products and technology promising quantum leap performance improvements , and an outstanding management and engineering team. We are proud to be associated with such a dream team."
Steinar Fossen, Investment Director of Investinor, who becomes an Energy Micro board member, said: "Investinor are excited to have this opportunity to join Energy Micro’s strong team. Energy Micro is a great match with Investinor, which invests in early stage Norwegian companies aiming for high growth on a global scale. We look forward to participating in Energy Micro’s future success."
Geir Førre, Founder and CEO of Energy Micro said: "Energy Micro had the enviable position to be able to choose from a number of top tier VCs who all wanted to invest in the company. We are very proud to have Northzone and Investinor as our first external investors and members of the board, and believe they will contribute significantly to the company’s development and growth in the coming years."
For further information and reader enquiries:
Øyvind Borgan, Energy Micro AS, PO Box 4633, Nydalen, N-405 Oslo, Norway
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Tel:+47 23 00 98 00
Fax:+47 23 00 98 01
www.energymicro.com
For further information or to discuss feature article opportunities:
Rob Davies, Publitek Limited, 18 Brock Street, Bath, BA1 2LW, United Kingdom
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Tel: +44 (0)1225 470 000
Fax: +44 (0)1225 470 047
www.publitek.com
About Energy Micro
Energy Micro develops, markets and sells the world's most energy friendly microcontrollers, based on the industry leading ARM® Cortex™-M3 32-bit architecture. The company was founded in 2007 by experienced semiconductor professionals with previous expertise from Chipcon, Texas Instruments, Atmel and Nordic Semiconductor. More information on Energy Micro is available at www.energymicro.com
About Northzone Ventures
Northzone is a European Venture Capital Partnership with a Nordic stronghold, Northzone has 7 dedicated partners in its offices in Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, and has raised 6 funds since its inception in 1996 with consistent top-tier returns. Previous investments include Spotify, Funcom, Lastminute.com, Stepstone, Pricerunner and NextGenTel. For more information, please visit:www.northzone.com
About Investinor
Investinor is a governmental backed venture fund with a capital base of NOK 2.2bn. Investinor make investments in Norwegian based, internationally oriented early growth or expansion stage companies. Priority are on industries with an international growth potential and where Norway holds a strong position. Our team has comprehensive experience from industrial senior positions, early stage/venture investments and active investment portfolio ownership. For more information, please visit:www.investinor.no
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