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July 2000

Cyan Technology spins out of Cambridge Consultants

ETCapital and Cambridge Gateway invest £1,500,000 in Cyan Technology, the innovative microcontroller spin-out from Cambridge Consultants.

The Cambridge Gateway Fund and ETCapital have invested £1,500,000 in Cyan Technology Limited, a spin-out from Cambridge Consultants Limited (CCL). Cyan Technology will exploit 16-bit microcontroller technology, originally developed by CCL, to build a family of standard high-performance microcontrollers with a wide range of embedded and other applications, including mobile communications devices and interactive television.

The core technology has been developed over the past ten years by CCL to meet the custom semiconductor needs of its multinational clients. The technology forms part of the chip at the heart of Cambridge Silicon Radio: the Bluetooth radio networking spin-out from CCL. Cyan Technology is the third spin-out from CCL in the past eighteen months.

TCyan Technology's management team, David Griffiths (CEO) and Chris Davies (CTO), are looking to use the technology for a family of standard chips. They believe that the impressive performance/power consumption mix of the microprocessor's design, allied with the comprehensive software development environment written for it, will give their microcontrollers an advantage over the competition which includes heavyweights, such as Hitachi, Siemens and Fujitsu, as well as fast-growing Californian start-ups such as Scenix. In addition Cyan Technology has formed a partnership with Amino Communications, whose IntAct technology, which has extensive application in the embedded consumer device market, will power the communications interface of Cyan Technology's microcontrollers.

TDavid Griffiths commented "I believe that Cyan Technology has a clear opportunity to exploit a tested and tried microcontroller architecture in some of the most exciting applications that have grown out of the internet revolution. The company's products are ideally suited to the next generation of connected devices including mobile data and telephony and web-enabled television. I am very pleased that ETCapital and The Cambridge Gateway Fund recognise this potential and have invested in our business at the outset of an exciting period of growth."

TCCL has renewed its business aim as the founding company behind a large number of Cambridge ventures. CCL aims to spin out an average of two companies a year and bring a substantial share of the value back into the core business for further investment in engineering and product developments. Claire Ruskin, a Director at CCL commented "David will be able to exploit some of the key technology that we have built up here at CCL over the past years. The microprocessor will be very low cost, highly applicable to many products and with a higher performance / price ratio than is currently available."

TETCapital, the Oxford and Cambridge-based technology investor, www.etcapital.com, makes investments of between £20,000 and £500,000 in innovative businesses with excellent technology and capable management. It made this investment from QTP, a fund in which HSBC Bank and the European Investment Bank are principal investors.

TThe Cambridge Gateway Fund, www.cambridgegateway.com, invests in early stage companies with a global reach that are connected with the Eastern region of the UK, and which are exploiting innovative core technology in the fields of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Life Sciences. It is advised by N W Brown Capital Partners Limited, the venture capital arm of NW Brown Group.

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