Amphion raises $5m in new funding round

Belfast based company, Amphion has announced that it has closed its latest funding round during which it raised $5m (€4.29m).

The latest round was led by ACT Venture Capital and included investment from existing investors Apax Partners' Funds and Enterprise Equity, as well as new investment from Invest Northern Ireland.

Amphion, a spin-off from The Queen's University of Belfast was founded in 1994 by Dr J.G. Doherty (CEO) and Prof John McCanny (CTO) on the back of 14 years of university research into advanced DSP architectures.

Amphion provides semiconductor intellectual-property (SIP) in the form of application-specific cores for multimedia, wireless and broadband communications System-on-a-Chip integrated circuit designs. It was formerly known as Integrated Silicon Systems (ISS).

In May 2002, the semiconductor solutions company announced that it was looking to raise additional funds of €10m to finance its expansion after the €11.4m it raised in 2001. At that stage, the company was already profitable.

"We are delighted to have investors of this calibre help us build the company," said Dr. JG Doherty, CEO of Amphion.

"Our focus is on delivering the high value solutions from our strategic roadmap that customers have identified as essential to their own future success."

Amphion currently employs 38 and is headquartered in Belfast, with sales and marketing headquartered in San Jose, California.