WideSail Technologies receives funding from MSBi Valorisation

By Heri May 12th 2008 in Business

MSBi Valorisation, which works closely with research departments in 3 Québec universities, has announced last week they have invested in WideSail Technologies. If the name rings a bell to you, it’s also because it’s the old name of iNovia Capital.

WideSail is a semiconductor spun-off from McGill University, and has developed new error correction technologies with unique performance. WideSail has announced it will license the design to manufacturers, for use in WiFi, WiMAx, Ethernet, and next-generation telephony networks.

WideSail’s CEO is Gord Harling, a serial entrepreneur who alreay has under his belts 2 other successful technology companies.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

And here, you expect an industry analysis, but I have to say I know absolutely nothing about the current semi-conductor industry — last I checked I only did the theory in engineering, so I am in no position to state if widesail is going to be successful. Congratulations are in order though, it’s refreshing to see that the semi-conductor companies are active in Montréal.

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Comments

Mark macLeod May 13, 2008

Semi companies often fly under the radar. There are a few here. DFT Microsystems (another Innovia company) comes to mind. They recently completed some financing.

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Chris Arsenault May 13, 2008

Clarification:

MSBiV (www.msbiv.ca) is a seed stage commercialization entity distinct of iNovia Capital. Although it was created in partnership by iNovia Capital, McGill University, Université de Sherbrooke and Bishop’s University, MSBiV has its own funds and investment mandate focused on deal flow form its academic partner institutions and their affiliated hospitals and research institutions.

iNovia Capital (www.inoviacapital.com) also manages a first $46M fund (MSBI Investment Fund L.P.) and a second fund of $107M (iNovia Investment Fund II, L.P.). These Funds are investing in seed and early stage deals that aren’t required to come from its growing number of academic partners.

Semiconductor deals are coming back, slowly but surely. More news to come later this year.

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Gord Harling May 14, 2008

WideSail is part of a new type of semiconductor company. We provide a pre-designed block to the designers of integrated circuits, the designers then integrate it into their design and generate the instructions for fabrication. We are more like a software company, we have no inventory and can do rapid product changes and introductions, but because we have a strong patent portfolio and deep domain knowledge we can charge a decent price for our product and obtain royalties on unit sales.

We are part of the $2B Semiconductor Intellectual Property market which is growing at about 14% per year, faster than the semiconductor market as a whole. Other examples of SIP companies are ARM, Virage Logic, and Elliptic Semiconductor.

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