Elonics secures £2M ($4M) series A funding

LIVINGSTON, UK — Elonics announced that it has completed a series A funding round for £2M ($4M). Key investors include Braveheart Investment Group, Scottish Venture Fund and a number of private investors including Brian Souter and Sir Tom Farmer. Elonics was founded in 2003 and is the developer of ‘Digital Tune’, a flexible radio tuner chip technology platform that can be configured to support different standards and frequencies for a number of applications. Elonics’ DigitalTune technology will initially be used to develop the E4000 chip, a flexible TV tuner for portable and handheld devices such as smart phones, laptops, etc.

The market for flexible tuner chips for mobile and handheld devices is predicted to grow rapidly over the next few years. Elonics has a comprehensive patent portfolio that places it in a strong position to capitalise on future developments in this fast evolving field. The E4000 is currently undergoing prototype development and evaluation and the funding is designed to provide working capital to enable Elonics to complete the development of the product and take it to market by the third quarter of 2008.

Commenting on the investment, Geoffrey Thomson, Chief Executive of Braveheart said, “Elonics’ DigitalTune technology will enable the company to provide a low cost and flexible tuner chip that will place it in an ideal position to take advantage of future growth in the market for mobile TV. The size of the investment we have made demonstrates the confidence we have in the potential of Elonics’ technology and management and consolidates Braveheart’s reputation as one of the key supporters of innovation in this field.”

David Srodzinski, Chief Executive of Elonics, said; “We have worked tirelessly over the last 3 years to refine our platform CMOS multi-standard RF technology. We have now moved from concept to successful evaluation at multiple prospect sites throughout the world with a multistandard Tuner product. The funding comes at an excellent time for us as the markets are rapidly growing and prospect feedback is very good indeed.”

Neil Ross, head of Scottish Venture Fund, commented, “Elonics is an innovative Scottish company capable of becoming a world-leading business. The Scottish Venture Fund co-invests alongside the private sector to encourage more investment in these exciting, growing Scottish companies.”

About DigitalTune™

Elonics DigitalTune™ is a patent pending radio frequency architecture that enables the design of multiband RF front ends using a single monolithic CMOS IC. The digitally programmable multi-band architecture is used in the E4000 tuner family to cover the complete spectrum from VHF 2 to L Band (76MHz to 1.70GHz) for mobile broadcast applications. DigitalTune™ is a universal architecture, and is capable of supporting other RF applications where re-configuration is highly desirable. The direct conversion zero IF architecture is designed to save power and lower system cost. It eliminates the requirement for expensive and bulky external components such as SAW filters and RF baluns, yet offers extremely high performance. Elonics innovative DigitalTune™ architecture enables manufacturers to significantly improve upon today’s solutions offering support for multiple standards with a common re-configurable RF front end.