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NGen Partners leads Series B investment to Florida-based semiconductor
materials supplier
Orlando, FL (January 1, 2004) psiloQuest, Inc., a manufacturer
of specialty polishing pads for use in a semiconductor manufacturing
process known as Chemical Mechanical Planarization, or CMP, announced
today that it recently closed a $7.0 Million, oversubscribed,
Series B round of financing. The funding was led by NGen Partners
of Santa Barbara, California. The round also included previous
investors Aurora Funds, Grace Venture Partners and Greyhound
Fund LP, as well as new investors DuPont, Air Products and Chemicals
and Cycad Group, also of Santa Barbara.
“We are particularly pleased to have connected with NGen
Partners and their unique approach to venture funding, especially
in the funding environment we’ve lived through over the
past couple of years,” remarked Bob Heid, President and
CEO of psiloQuest. “We consider it a validation of our
technology and our business that several of NGen’s strategic
limited partners chose to join NGen independently as individual
investors in psiloQuest. It is also gratifying that Aurora, Grace
and Greyhound expanded their interests in psiloQuest after having
been with us for over two years.”
psiloQuest’s Application Specific Pads will afford semiconductor
manufacturers a tremendous reduction in the cost of ownership
for CMP, an enabling manufacturing process used to produce 60%
of all the computer chips sold in the world today. The unique
construction of psiloQuest’s products eliminates costly
conditioning steps required by all competitive pads used in the
same application. It also enables semiconductor manufacturers
to reduce their slurry consumption by as much as 30%.
Steve Parry, NGEN Partners notes: “The fact that we were
able to quickly build an oversubscribed round with just the original
investors and our own limited partners, without seeking outside
funds, is a testament to the quality of this company and its
management team. There are few deals today where the technology
advantage in a high growth market is so clear, and where the
market interest is so correspondingly evident.”
Since the launch of its first commercial product at the beginning
of Q2, 2003, psiloQuest has initiated process qualification programs
at nearly a dozen semiconductor manufacturers throughout North
America and Asia. Process qualifications such as these typically
last 12 to 18 months and require extremely close cooperation
between psiloQuest and each customer’s process development
and manufacturing engineering groups.
A spokesperson for psiloQuest stated that the company will announce
its first customer conversions in Q1, 2004.
Proceeds from the funding will be used to expand the company’s
manufacturing capacity and to build a full scale sales and marketing
infrastructure. Portions of the funding will also be used to
complete development and begin commercialization of psiloQuest’s
new product family targeted for polishing copper, the newest
and fastest growing semiconductor manufacturing technology introduced
in recent years.
Scott Albert, Managing General Partner of The Aurora Funds says: “We
are very pleased at the progress made by psiloQuest over the
past several years in developing its new pad technology. As an
early investor in the company, we believe that this new financing
will provide the capital necessary to build out the company’s
infrastructure and to bring the company’s products to the
marketplace in the near term.”
Recent market research reports estimate the CMP pad market at
roughly $400 Million worldwide in 2003, with annual growth estimates
of 12% to 18% over the next five years. “The rebound of
the semiconductor industry in the fourth quarter of 2003, and
the continued growth predicted through 2004 bode well for our
future,” remarked Mr. Heid. “Our unique technology
offers some very demonstrable benefits. With industry wide fab
utilization passing 90%, and with the growth of 300mm wafers
and the increasing emphasis on defect reduction, psiloQuest is
well positioned to become a major force in this market in years
to come.”
About psiloQuest
psiloQuest, Inc. was established in Orlando, FL during 2000 to
develop and commercialize CMP polishing pads to the semiconductor
industry. Initial product development and commercialization
efforts took 2.5 years, and the company began commercial operations
in April 2003.
About NGen Partners:
NGEN is a venture capital team comprised of world renowned academic,
business and corporate partners. Based in Santa Barbara CA,
NGEN seeks high growth companies that address large markets
in materials-related fields. The fund is engineered to support
accelerated product development through the fund’s limited
partners that include Air Products and Chemicals, BASF, Bayer,
BHP Billiton, Boeing, Canon, DSM, Dupont, Henkel, Honda, Schott
Glass, CDP Capital and Unilever. www.ngenpartners.com
About The Aurora Funds:
Founded in 1994, The Aurora Funds is a venture capital firm that
provides capital, connections and strategic help to entrepreneurs
with early stage life science and information technology companies,
primarily in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States.
Aurora typically invests in seed and first round financing
opportunities. The firm has more than $155 million of total
capital under management and is currently investing out of
its fourth fund of $85 million. The firm has the capacity to
invest between $4 million and $7 million throughout the life
cycle of an investment. More information is available at www.aurorafunds.com.
About Grace Venture Partners
Grace Venture Partners is an Orlando-based venture capital firm
investing in the technology and hospitality industries. The
firm's first fund, Grace Venture Partners, LP, has seven investments
in early stage technology companies in the areas of communications
infrastructure, semiconductors and software. The technology
fund has focus geographically on investments in the southeastern
United States. The firm also manages a syndicate of investors,
Grace Restaurant Partners, LP, which invests in emerging growth
restaurant companies located throughout the United States.
For more information, visit www.graceventure.com
About Greyhound Funds
Greyhound Fund LP is an early stage technology investment venture
fund managed by Bulldog Capital Management of Clearwater, Florida.
For more information, please contact Philip Goodman at Philip@rtii.net.
For more information contact:
Heather Hruby
psiloQuest, Inc.
hhruby@psiloquest.com
407.781.7237
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