17th December 2007

Powervation, a Digital Energy Control Company, announces $10M in series A funding

Powervation Ltd. (www.powervation.ie), a digital energy control, fabless semiconductor company, today announced the closing of a US$10 million round of venture capital funding.

The series A round was jointly led by Intel Capital (OR, USA ) and SEP ( UK ), with Venture Tech Alliance (CA, USA ) and a follow on investment from Fourth Level Ventures (IRL). Enterprise Ireland continues to support the company and retains its original investment.

Powervation will use the funding to take to market the digital energy control semiconductor and software solutions in the product development pipeline and to expand its sales and marketing presence in the U.S. and Asia .

Powervation’s digital energy controllers are used for delivering power to microprocessors in high performance information processing applications in computing, networking, telecommunications, storage and industrial markets. The advanced digital control technology displaces incumbent analog based solutions by providing higher levels of energy efficiency, performance, reliability, ease of use and lower total cost of ownership for customers.

According to market analysts, the market for Digital Power Controllers will exceed 300 million units by 2011, with a growth rate of 112 percent.

The core technology was originally developed at the Circuits and Systems Research Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland, where applied research in the area has been ongoing since 2001.

Commenting on the investment round, Antoin Russell, CEO of Powervation, said: "Following our first round of fundraising in 2006 and the very positive customer reaction to our products and technologies, we received significant investor interest in our company. We are delighted to have attracted the global participation of three major new venture capital firms that have significant experience in the fabless power semiconductor industry.”

Damien Callaghan of Intel Capital commented: “The fabless semiconductor industry is ripe for thoughtful innovation and unique approaches; we feel that Powervation typifies that outlook.”

Fearghal O’Riordan of SEP ( UK ), said: “The market for power control solutions is just reaching a significant inflection point. On the one hand, the cost and capabilities of pure digital power controllers are now transcending those of traditional controller solutions. On the other, the rapidly developing market focus on enhanced energy management means that there is real emerging demand for innovative power management systems enabled by the enhanced capabilities of digital power control..”

Jim Diller of Venture Tech Alliance further commented: “Powervation’s technology proposition uniquely addresses the problems at the heart of power control. We believe that this company will finally put the Analog Vs Digital power control debate to rest, paving the way for rapid adoption.”