Lake Forest-based Newport Media Inc., a startup maker of chips for digital audio and mobile TV, recently landed $15 million in a round of venture funding.
The round was led by Palo Alto-based Pinnacle Ventures and included previous investors Westport, Conn.-based Oak Investment Partners and the Bay Area’s Benchmark Capital, Venrock, Global Catalyst Partners and DAG Ventures LLC.
Newport Media, which was started in 2005, is one of Orange County’s best-funded chip startups with $100 million raised to date.
The company’s chips allow mobile TV applications to run on cell phones and other devices.
The money is set to be used to ramp up chip production, according to Chief Executive Mohy Abdelgany.
“Securing the necessary working capital is the last step needed to ensure our ability to capitalize on our significant design wins over the last several years,” he said.
The company hasn’t named any of its customers.
It’s been targeting some in Japan, where market penetration of mobile TV hovers around 80%, Abdelgany said.
Newport Media has close ties with another local veteran chipmaker: Newport Beach’s Conexant Systems Inc.
Dwight Decker, former chief executive and current board member, joined Newport Media’s board a few years ago.
Many in Newport Media’s management team at some point had roles at Conexant.
In the mid-1990s, Abdelgany was at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems Inc., which later became Conexant.
Abdelgany left in 2002 to work at Woburn, Mass.-based Skyworks Solutions Inc.’s Irvine operations before starting Newport Media.
The company is expecting to turn a profit this year. It doesn’t disclose revenue.
The company is organizing for a potential public offering later on, he said. It’s hired outside auditors, filled in its executive staff and is preparing to meet regulatory requirements.
The company has some 50 workers locally and 160 in all.
3Tera Acquired
Aliso Viejo’s 3Tera Inc., a startup maker of cloud computing software, was acquired last month by technology services kingpin CA Inc. for undisclosed terms.
Privately held 3Tera’s software helps companies cut down on the costs and the time it takes to set up cloud computing, which lets companies store and run their data and software programs on outsourced servers.
Islandia, N.Y.-based CA is a big provider of outsourced software and other services.
CA sees some $4.3 billion in yearly sales and had a recent market value of about $12 billion.
The company has been doing several small deals for cloud computing technologies—it has acquired three other cloud-related software companies in the past year or so.
3Tera, which got started in 2004, has about 15 local workers and 20 in all.
The company is self-funded and doesn’t disclose any financial information.
A trio of senior managers from 3Tera is set to join CA. It’s unclear whether the local office will stay in place.
“We don’t expect any major changes in the near term,” said Essy Nickolova, vice president of marketing communications at 3Tera. “It’s a very strategic acquisition for CA. We are very excited and view this as a very positive thing for us and the cloud computing market as a whole.”
10,000 Jobs
Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. signed on to a big investment effort by chip kingpin Intel Corp.
Intel said it created a loose coalition of companies and investors, dubbed the Invest in America Alliance, that’s set to pour billions into backing startups and hiring new graduates in the next two years.
Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini announced the effort in a speech delivered at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., last month.
Broadcom is one of 17 technology and biotechnology companies that vowed to double their hiring rates in 2010 of recent college graduates. This hiring could create some 10,000 jobs in engineering, computer science, financial analysis, marketing, management consulting and sales.
Other companies that signed on include Accenture PLC, Adobe Systems Inc., Autodesk Inc., CDW LLC., Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc., eBay Inc., EMC Corp., General Electric Co., Google Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Liberty Mutual Group, Marvell Semiconductor Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
Bits and Pieces
Aliso Viejo-based Telogis Inc., a maker of GPS software for delivery fleets, named Doug Daniels vice president of sales of its Telogis GeoBase division. Daniels joins Telogis from Colorado’s DigitalGlobe Inc., a publicly traded company that sells pictures of Earth taken from satellites … There’s another vice president of sales hire at Irvine networking chip startup Solarflare Communications Inc., which tapped Sean Kohane. He’s held posts at Milpitas-based Aquantia Corp., Agoura Hills-based National Semiconductor Inc. and other chipmakers …. Global chip sales are expected to reach $276 billion this year, up 20% from 2009 sales of $231 billion, according to the latest outlook by Stamford, Conn.-based market researcher Gartner Inc.
