Shocking Technologies Raises $7M in a First Round of Venture Capital Funding
Shocking Technologies Inc. announced a $7 million financing round co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and ATA Ventures with participation by several industry luminaries. In addition, Shocking Technologies has assembled a board of directors of five experienced entrepreneurs and technologists.
Shocking Technologies will use the capital to accelerate deployment of its patented voltage switchable dielectrics technology for several applications including electrostatic discharge protection of semiconductor chips, printed circuit boards and metal patterning of small features on dielectric for many electronic applications. These areas have become major technical issues identified in the ITRS Roadmap for the electronics industry as chips and circuits continue to shrink in size. Shocking Technologies intends to help reduce the cost, size, and time-to-market of consumer electronics and increase their reliability.
"We look for great entrepreneurs, great technology, and large markets. In Shocking Technologies we found all three", said Ajit Medhekar, a Venture Partner with ARCH Venture Partners. Medhekar has 25 years of semiconductor industry experience as a technologist, entrepreneur and CEO in a variety of organizations including National Semiconductor, AMD, Alliance Semiconductor, and Lara Technology.
"We are excited to invest and partner with Shocking Technologies, who is the technology leader in an important part of the electronics industry value chain and we look forward to helping them grow", said Pete Thomas, co-founder and Managing Director of ATA Ventures. Thomas has 25 years of experience in the venture capital industry and was an early investor and board member of many successful innovative companies such as Atmel, Altera, Cirrus Logic, and FormFactor.
"The founding team of Shocking is very pleased to have attracted experienced technology investors from ARCH and ATA. We are moving quickly to build our business using our unique technology to address market demands", said Lex Kosowsky, President and CEO of Shocking Technologies. Kosowsky has 25 years of microelectronics industry experience at several organizations including President & CEO positions at DMS Technologies and Leading Technologies, and 12 years leading National Semiconductor’s Dyna-Craft subsidiary.
Shocking’s board of directors includes Messrs. Kosowsky, Thomas and Medhekar, and Silicon Valley veterans, James Hogan and Gary Kennedy. Hogan was a senior executive at Cadence and Artisan Technologies, and Kennedy is former CEO of Orbit Semiconductor.
