Pragmatic’s $125m boost will supercharge ‘thin-film semiconductors in everything’
A new investment of $35million has lifted Cambridge Science Park-based semiconductor company Pragmatic’s Series C funding to $125m, 50 per cent more than its original target.
Investors have been attracted by the massive potential for Pragmatic’s unique, flexible integrated circuits to replace mainstream silicon chips, as well as to enable trillions of smart items in applications that would never be possible with silicon. Pragmatic’s chip is produced without silicon, using thin-film semiconductors to create flexible integrated circuits that are thinner than a human hair, and are significantly cheaper and faster to produce than silicon chips.
The extra funding will be used to accelerate Pragmatic’s growth plans, including developing the company’s second fabrication line, FlexLogic-002, which will increase production capacity by more than five times, along with building a new 15-acre production site in Durham. In addition, the company has doubled its footprint in Cambridge with an option to double again within the next year.
The foundry service uniquely allows agile hardware design, exponentially accelerating solution development and time-to-market. Examples include proprietary RFID protocols, time/temperature indicators, fingerprint sensors, wearable smart patches for healthcare, flexible display drivers, and novel microprocessor architectures.
New investors include British Patient Capital, a commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank; and In-Q-Tel, which invests in high-tech companies to advance technology capabilities for the US intelligence community and its allies.
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.”
In-Q-Tel’s involvement highlights the strategic importance of Pragmatic’s ground-breaking semiconductor technology platform at a time when governments around the world are focused on ensuring secure control of supply chains for critical electronic components.
Erik Langaker, chair of Pragmatic, said: “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.”
Additional new investors include Prosperity7 Ventures (the growth fund under Aramco Ventures), the North East Development Capital Fund and the Finance Durham Fund (both managed by Maven Capital Partners).
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.”
