Power Integrations, a US-based provider of high-voltage integrated circuits, has invested $30m in local peer SemiSouth Laboratories.
SemiSouth had previously raised more than $20m of equity and over $30m of federal grants and contracts.
Jeffrey Casady, co-founder and chief technology officer of SemiSouth, said: "Without our early investors, including the [US state-backed] Southern Appalachian Fund, [venture capital firm] Delta Capital, and several individual business leaders, and without an initial strategic investment from II-VI, we wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.
"Those early investors enabled us to make enough progress to attract additional capital from the region, as well as global investors like Schneider Electric Ventures of France [now merged to form Aster Capital], and most recently from Power Integrations."
Balu Balakrishnan, executive president of Power Integrations, said: "With a mutual focus on energy-efficient high-voltage semiconductor technology, Power Integrations and SemiSouth are natural strategic partners. While we were surprised to find a venture-backed semiconductor company in the southern Appalachia region, we have since discovered the area offers an environment highly conducive to innovation and private-sector investment."
SemiSouth was started by two Mississippi State University professors and spun-out into an incubator facility.