Innovative chip maker Pragmatic Semiconductor has landed £28.2m ($35m) funding from a range of institutional investors.
The manufacturer has plans to build a multimillion-pound factory on the site of the former Wavin Pipeworks in County Durham, bringing 125 jobs to the area. And this latest investment has broken its Series C funding round target by more than half, totalling £100.8m ($125m).
Pragmatic, which already operates a Sedgefield NETPark facility and has expanded its Cambridge base, says the money will be used to accelerate the plans which involve the redevelopment of the site to include a 175,000 sqft factory where it will make its flexible integrated circuits that are intended to replace mainstream silicon chips.
Read more: Shield Therapeutics secures £15.1m in raise and seals deal with healthcare company
The company has previously talked of cultivating a cluster of innovative firms at the 15-acre site, where it will launch its second production line, known as a "fab". The move will increase Pragmatic's production capacity by more than five times.
Investors involved in this latest injection include British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank plc; In-Q-Tel, which invests in firms to advance technology capabilities for the US intelligence community and allies; Prosperity7 Ventures and the North East Development Capital Fund and the Finance Durham Fund, both managed by Maven Capital Partners.
Catherine Lewis La Torre, CEO of British Patient Capital, said: "Pragmatic is another great example of a UK company which has developed and commercialised world-leading technology from a UK base. We are delighted to be investing in the further growth of this homegrown semiconductor manufacturing business via Future Fund: Breakthrough, our dedicated deeptech fund which is investing in some of the country’s most innovative and dynamic businesses."
Scott White, CEO of Pragmatic said: "This oversubscribed investment round, in spite of the challenging macroeconomic conditions, is a huge vote of confidence in Pragmatic’s unique technology and business traction. Our signature ultra low cost, flexible form factor, fast production cycle time and minimal carbon footprint address key challenges across the industry, allowing rapid time-to-market for novel electronics applications as well as enabling localisation of semiconductor manufacturing and driving towards net-zero product lifecycles."
Erik Langaker, chair of Pragmatic, added: "We continue to see growing investor and customer interest in affordable solutions for digitisation and control of supply chains, reinforced by government initiatives such as the recent EU legislation regarding Digital Product Passports. This is the beginning of electronics in everything – supported by great technology developed and scaled in the UK."
Like this story? Go HERE to sign up for North East business newsletters
READ NEXT:
