Ticino-based GPS chipmaker closes SFr8.3 million first round
NemeriX, a fabless semiconductor manufacturer founded in late June of this year, has closed a SFr8.3 million first round, led by Atila Ventures.
Besides Atila Ventures’s ETV fund, Venture Incubator AG is also investing. The capital will be used by NemeriX to continue design and development of GPS chips, to strengthen “seed” customer relationships and to formally launch the company’s GPS chipset products.
The company says its main product is a Global Positioning System (GPS) semiconductor solution. NemeriX’s specialty is making low power chipsets – technology essential to the future of the mobile phone industry, the telematics and the location and security industries.
The company says it uses “innovative silicon architectures and full custom layout techniques” to achieve a very low power solution. Such power savings “in silicon” are generally believed to be critical for the adoption of GPS in mobile and handheld products by permitting the use of low-cost batteries and in enabling new applications.
TChip Semiconductor
The one-month-old firm may have managed to close a large first round funding within such a short time because it appears to be a start-up with a past. NemeriX may have emerged from a firm called a TChip Semiconductor.
When this reporter contacted TChip in a routine request for information earlier this year, she was told that the firm was now known as NemeriX.
The website for TChip has a redirect link for visitors taking them to the NemeriX website. TChip was a one-year-old start-up company that was recently liquidated, according to the Swiss Federal Commercial Registry.
But principals of NemeriX were unwilling to comment publicly on the relationship between the two. Neither investors nor principles would provide further details than what is available in the press release announcing the venture capital funding of NemeriX.
NemeriX and TChip are both privately-owned companies and are not required by law or by custom to provide information to the public.
by Valerie Thompson
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