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Case Study
Acuid Corporation
- Appointed to raise funding for expansion and to establish an appropriate corporate structure for a future IPO, ASL devoted significant resources to ensure the investment met both the company and investor requirements.
- Following a management buy-out in 1996, Alex Deas founded Acuid Corporation from a specialist engineering facility of his previous company, Memory Corporation. At that time the organisation supported 45 staff, mainly working out of St Petersburg, Russia. Since then, Acuid Corporation has developed hardware and software technologies that enable the speed of electronic systems to be increased by orders of magnitude. These technologies apply to the ATE, semiconductor and optical markets.
- In June 2000, Mosaid Technologies Inc became a trade investor, committing US$1million for a 10% equity stake. Acuid's technology application for the ATE market was released on a global basis in July 2000 and sales commenced in the same month. Shortly thereafter, the company licensed the technology to partner organisations across Asia, North America and mainland Europe.
- It was at this stage the company sought to raise finance for expansion capital, including establishing a new design centre and appointed ASL as advisers. ASL worked closely with the management team to secure the investment. This involved all aspects of fundraising from presenting and negotiating with the potential investors to completing the due diligence process. Key to the process was ASL's ability to translate the complexities of the technology into easily understandable terms.
- The company, with 70 employees, secured US$8million investment in May 2001 at a time when relatively few investments were being made in early stage technology companies. A condition of the first round funding was the appointment of a Chief Executive Officer. ASL worked very closely with the company to appoint Hans Rohrer, former European president of TSMC.
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