Morpho Technologies Inc. got more funding and a new chief executive in the latest shift at the Irvine chip designer.
The company said on Monday it closed a third round of funding worth $10 million. Smart Technology Ventures and BridgeWest LLC, both current investors, led the funding.
Morpho also said it hired John Rayfield, a former executive with Britian’s ARM Holdings PLC. He replaces Harold Blomquist, who had been chief executive for about a year. Blomquist replaced company founder Shahriar Sadri.
The company didn’t comment on why Blomquist left. Akbar Shokouhis, a Morpho board member representing investor BridgeWest LLC, gave some indication about why the company sought a new leader.
“We are confident that John’s unique skill set in processor licensing and marketing will escalate Morpho Technology’s ability to map our technology offering to the growing demand for configurable wireless devices,” he said.
Morpho started out as a licensor of designs for a special type of chip called a reconfigurable digital signal processor. The design allows for a chip’s function to be changed with software, replacing multiple chips.
The company got its start after a group of University of California, Irvine, engineers received a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research arm of the Defense Department.
