Apr 21 2008
VC Investment Down, But Acquisitions Up?
A recent “Silicon Forest Blog” notes that VC investment in US companies is down by 7 percent from the first three months of last year.
While it’s too early to forecast a trend in funding, it is interesting to compare this data point with the recent acquisition – say, in the last 3 to 4 months – of EDA companies. Here’s my very unofficial short list:
- Syplicity-Hardi acquired by Synopsys
- ChipEstimate acquired by Cadence
- Novas acquired by Springsoft (parent company)
- Ansoft acquired by Ansys (simulation sw)
- Sirific Wireless acquired by Icera Inc (SDR modem chipsets)
- Sabio Labs acquired by Magma Design
- AMIS (parts of LSI and AD) acquired by ON SemiconductorNovelics joint deal with Synopsys
These two data sets seem to beg the question: Are the number of available EDA start-ups actually shrinking? Does anyone really know?
BTW: I have some interesting data of my own (thx to sources that I’ll share later). Look for that in the next few weeks.