Irvine Sensors Corp. is exploring an initial public offering as it develops a video analytics platform that incorporates artificial intelligence.
The company, headquartered in Costa Mesa, alludes to a potential IPO in several job listings posted on LinkedIn.
“The company is working toward an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in early 2017 based on the success of several of its current business lines and new developments,” the company said in the posts.
“It will be in the March or April time period,” said Chief Executive John Carson. Its ALERT video analytics division is hiring for several positions in software development and testing and support personnel in product operations.
The ALERT product—which is undergoing prototype testing in airports and ground transportation hubs—is an “important element of this strategy.”
Irvine Sensors is an employee-owned company.
It said in documents filed in April with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it aims to raise $8 million from outside investors. Records in the filing show it had raised about $4.3 million of that at the time.
The company, which also is developing advanced cognitive processing techniques, has racked up over 30 years of research funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; Army Space and Missile Defense Command; the Defense Intelligence Agency; and internal corporate investments.
It has annual revenue between $1 million and $5 million, according to regulatory documents.
Irvine Sensors briefly changed its name in late 2011 to ISC8 and rolled out a new logo in a rebranding effort to highlight its technology for fighting cyber attacks and other security breaches.Â
The strategy, pushed by investors, was short lived, as that market never materialized.
TTM News
TTM Technologies Inc.’s largest shareholder, Su Sih (BVI) Ltd., has sold 13.8 million shares in a secondary offering at about $11 per share, cashing out roughly $152 million.
The sale lowered Su Sih’s stake in the Costa Mesa-based printed circuit maker to about 13.7%, according to regulatory documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Su Sih is controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Tang Hsiang Chien, who has an 83.4% stake in the holding company. Forbes lists his net worth at $1.38 billion.
Tang is the father of TTM director Tom C.Y. Tang, who ran the company’s Asia Pacific region for years and has been a board member since 2010.
TTM established a special security agreement that same year that denied the elder Tang unauthorized access to classified information related to its defense contracts, a stipulation still in place today, a TTM spokesman confirmed to the Business Journal.
TTM is the country’s largest circuit board maker, with revenue last year of nearly $2.1 billion.
More Cuts at Broadcom
Singapore-based Broadcom Ltd.’s ongoing job cuts at its University Research Park campus have hit 771, according to filings with the California Employment Development Department.
That’s roughly a third of its Irvine operation and 21 more job cuts than the Business Journal’s last update in late August.
Broadcom’s downsizing, which includes the divestiture of two sizable business units this year that employed hundreds, has become one of the most prevalent storylines in OC’s diverse tech sector.
The company, whose U.S. headquarters are in San Jose, was formed in February after Avago Technologies Inc.’s $37 billion takeover of Broadcom Corp.
It has an estimated 1,630 local workers, which likely is a higher figure than actual headcount. Broadcom has stopped providing local employment figures to the Business Journal.
