3DSP Teams with Nuntius; MindArrow Gets Radical
A marketing campaign by young Irvine chip designer Valence Semiconductor Inc.,slated to start earlier this month,has been pushed back a month as the company readies the finishing touches.
“The date has slipped, but we’ll have some major coups for which we’ll be rolling out the releases for soon,” said Antony Beswick, Valence’s marketing vice president .
The campaign now is set to begin on Sept. 11, the company says.
Valence had planned a marketing push to follow an extensive road show, during which the company tried to drum up interest among investment bankers for the company’s products,chips that process both digital and analog signals for networking, video and wireless devices.
The company’s crown jewel: an announcement about its fourth funding round totaling $19.8 million that closed earlier this year.
While executives declined to comment on specific plans, Valence could be looking to an initial public stock offering, saying that would give the company leverage to make acquisitions,a strategy that helped its bigger neighbor, Broadcom Corp., grow in its early years.
“The real market opportunities are in multi-product semiconductors,” Beswick said earlier this year. “An IPO would be driven by our desire to combine our products with those of another company.”
But Valence has plenty of money to keep it tided over until an offering. Valence’s latest round of funding brought the total private investment in the company to $35 million since its 1998 founding.
Valence started with $3 million raised through private investors and quickly followed up with a $7.75 million investment from Newport Beach-based chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc., Lake Forest-based disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. and smaller investors.
Last July, Valence received a $5.25 million investment from Huntsville, Ala.-based networking gear maker Adtran Inc. It followed that up with a $19.8 million investment from a mix of European and U.S. banks and private equity funds.
3DSP finds partner
3DSP Inc., an Irvine designer of digital signal processors, didn’t have to look far for the latest member of its so-called masterpiece program, which looks to couple products 3DSP sees as complimentary to the chips it develops. Irvine-based Nuntius Systems Inc., which recently partnered with 3DSP on developing technology that enables voice transmissions via the Internet, is the program’s newest member.
“Nuntius offers our joint customers deep domain expertise in software development for packet telephony and other rapidly developing communications applications,” said Tom Beaver, chief executive and president at 3DSP.
3DSP uses its masterpiece program to form a network of complementary suppliers of digital signal processors and related products and services that help out chip designers.
MindArrow Buys Radical
MindArrow Systems Inc., an Aliso Viejo-based marketing software maker, recently signed a letter of intent to acquire Radical Communications Inc., a media software maker, to help it add features to its popular software.
MindArrow touts Radical’s flagship e-mail software product, RadicalMail, saying the company had developed a system that allows customers to develop, distribute, and manage rich media communications, such as voice and video.
Under proposed terms, MindArrow would acquire nearly all of the assets of Marina del Rey-based Radical Communication in exchange for 1.98 million shares of MindArrow common stock, 135,000 shares of MindArrow preferred stock and an unsecured subordinated promissory note from MindArrow for $1 million.
“RadicalMail is one of the premier brands in the interactive marketing space,” said MindArrow Chief Executive Robert Webber. “This acquisition would expand our product suite and provide us with the opportunity to market complementary applications and services. The combined solution will increase our ability to attract new clients and to better serve our joint customer base of more than 200 companies and over 20 channel partners, including several leading advertising agencies and marketing services firms.”
California Software Sees Profit
Irvine-based California Software Corp., a maker of software for IBM Corp. midrange computers, will post a profit this quarter, company executives said recently.
“We are still finalizing our second quarter numbers, but we now know that we will post a profit for the quarter. Given the current economic pressures for our segment and the market in general, I am very pleased that we have met our goal of profitability,” said Kevin Gadawski, vice president of finance at California Software.
The company instituted a cost-cutting program earlier this year in a bid to become profitable. The program began showing results at the end of the first quarter, the company said.
“This quarter will show that we can grow revenue and produce a profit during some tough times for tech companies,” said California Software Chief Executive Bruce Acacio.
