Amadeus et al. back Xmos

Ellie Pullen
04 December 2013

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Amadeus Capital Partners, DFJ Esprit and Foundation Capital have taken part in a $14m series-D funding round for Xmos, a Bristol-based fabless semiconductor company.

The three VCs are existing backers of the business. Amadeus is invested in Xmos via its £10m Amadeus & Angels Seed Fund and its Amadeus III fund, which closed above target on £160m in March 2007.

The funding round, which saw commitments from a small group of London- and Silicon Valley-based investors, included new backers.

The fresh capital will be used to finance Xmos's continuing growth strategy of boosting its international operations. Specifically, the company plans on opening a new support centre in Shenzhen, China, and is set to open its new sales office in Japan this month.

Xmos also plans on opening a sales and support office in Germany, as well as expanding its resources across the US. Furthermore, the company expects to double its engineering workforce in its Bristol- and Chennai-based development centres throughout 2014.

Previous funding
Amadeus and DFJ Esprit provided Xmos with seed funding believed to amount to around $1.2m in 2006.

The following September, the two firms injected $16m alongside Foundation Capital in the company's series-A round.

Company
Xmos is headquartered in Bristol with an additional office in India. The company span out from Bristol University in 2005 and employs around 50 staff.

Xmos has developed its xCore product range, which is a family of multicore microcontrollers that are meant to simplify the design of complex embedded systems for engineers. Xmos claims its xCore range has a faster response time than conventional microcontrollers.

Customers of the company typically operate in the consumer, audio, industrial and automotive industries.

People
Nigel Toon is the president and CEO of Xmos. Foundation Capital partner Bill Elmore sits on the company's board of directors as chairman. Amadeus co-founder Hermann Hauser sits on the board as a non-executive director and is responsible for the firm's investment in Xmos, alongside Amadeus's early-stage funds managing partner, Alex van Someren, who holds an observer position. DFJ Esprit venture partner Alan Duncan also sits on Xmos's board of directors.

Advisers
Equity – Taylor Wessing (Legal); Addleshaw Goddard (Legal).
Company – Orrick (Legal).