Avalanche Technology, a US-based memory technology producer backed by corporates VTB and Qualcomm, attracted more than $33m yesterday in a round led by venture capital fund Thomvest Ventures.
Founded in 2006, Avalanche develops advanced computer memory products with a focus on spin transfer torque magnetic RAM (STT-MRAM), a highly-scalable form of random access memory that offers greater capacity than earlier models while also providing superior energy and cost efficiency.
The company will use the capital to fund development of a high-capacity static RAM variant of its technology intended for internet-of-things, aerospace and defence applications. Proceeds will also support work on dynamic RAM chips suited to next-generation machine learning architectures.
Avalanche had assembled a total of $107m as of February 2019 according to regulatory filings, including $3.5m of a round with a $33.9m targeted close that is likely to represent the latest funding. It had secured $19.3m in April 2017 and another $5.3m in May 2018 according to separate filings.
VTB Capital and the now defunct Rogers Venture Partners (RVP), corporate venturing subsidiaries of financial services group VTB and telecommunications firm Rogers Communications, invested in Avalanche through a $23m round in 2016, alongside Thomvest Ventures and Vulcan Capital.
The company had received $35m in a 2013 round in 2013 that included $5m from RVP along with contributions from mobile chipmaker Qualcomm’s corporate venturing vehicle, Qualcomm Ventures, as well as VTB Capital, Thomvest, Vulcan Capital, Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).
Qualcomm Ventures also took part in a $11.5m round for Avalanche the previous year that was led by Vulcan Capital and also backed by Sequoia, BVP and Thomvest.