RedMere set for $6m funding and plans US rollout soon
Chip design firm RedMere is close to finalising a new $6 million (€4 million) fundraising round, and expects to have its product on sale across the United States during the first quarter of next year.
Chief executive Peter Smyth said the company was in talks with investors and expected to announce the closure of the funding before the end of 2009. Smyth said he could not name the participants in the round before the deal was signed.
Canadian venture capital firms Celtic House and Edgestone, along with Irish funds 4th Level and Enterprise Equity, are already backers of the Balbriggan-based company. RedMere has also received support from Enterprise Ireland.
Smyth said he anticipated RedMere would conduct one further fundraising round before the company became self financing.
RedMere develops chips which are used in high definition video cables. Smyth said that cables made with RedMere technology would be in most retail outlets across north America in the first quarter of next year.
While the prime application for the technology is to create cables that allow a mobile phone or camera to be connected to a TV to play high definition video, Smyth said the company had also discovered a secondary market in home theatre, since the size of the cables meant people could use them to clean up the unsightly cable mess behind their television sets.
‘‘We’re down to a cable now that’s close to 2mm in diameter.
That’s close to the size of an ear-bud cable that you would use with your iPod, but it carries high definition video,” he said.
Smyth declined to comment on revenues, but said the company h ad enjoyed strong growth this year and was looking stronger for next year with an expected boost in sales in north America The company is a semiconductor developer with manufacturing outsourced to the Far East.
‘‘Our Asian sales operates out of Hong Kong. The reason is that, while America specifies and defines the products that end up on the shelves, they are built mostly in southern China these days.
‘‘We don’t even warehouse it. It gets directly shipped from the manufacturer to customers,” he said.
RedMere’s latest abridged accounts reveal that the company made a net loss of €6.2 million last year.
It had accumulated losses of €15.8 million and a deficit in shareholders’ funds of €14.5 million, most of which is accounted for by €16.9 million worth of preference shares issued, which are classed as long-term creditors under accounting rules.
