Never a week goes by, without at least one seeming new entrant to corporate venturing popping up on a deal. One of these companies this week was Semtech Corporation, a Nasdaq-listed analog and mixed signal semiconductor company, which backed Powervation, an Ireland-based direct current energy efficiency company.
The $7m C round backing Powervation, places Semtech alongside Intel Capital, the corporate venturing unit of the eponymous semiconductor company, which has backed the Ireland-based company since co-leading its A round in 2007. The deal takes Powervation to $27m raised in its six-year history, according to data provider CrunchBase.
Interestingly Semtech, which had $480.6m in revenues last year, appears to be pursuing growth in part through acquisition. Earlier this year it bought Canada-based Gennum, an analog and mixed signal provider, for C$500m ($506m), the largest acquisition in Semtech’s 52-year history.
This deal followed the company buying Sierra Monolithics, which was corporate venturing-backed by IBM, in 2009 for $180m. As it digests the sizeable acquisition, relative to Semtech’s revenues, of Gennum, it may be that the company chooses to take more minority stakes in future scouting out future opportunities as it pursues scale.
Little is clear, and it may have merely been an opportunistic foray by Semtech, but the chip company looks like one to watch.