Movidia’s €11m funding for mobile video processor

26th October 2008

Movidia, the mobile video processor company, announced today that it had secured over US$14 million in Series A funding. Dublin start-up Movidia has secured over $14 million (€11 million) in Series A funding from an international syndicate led by Celtic House Venture Partners and Capital-E.

Company co-founder and chief executive Sean Mitchell said it would use funding from the syndicate, which also included Emertec Gestion, AIB Seed Capital Fund and Enterprise Ireland, to bring its mobile video processor technology to market.

Movidia’s low-power video processor enables User Generated Content (UGC) video production functions for mobile phones and other consumer electronics products.

‘‘It’s unique in that it allows users to do post-production editing on their phone, like changing lighting or adding slow motion. As it is, people are doing this sort of thing on the PC. Our chip eliminates the PC out of the equation,” said Mitchell.

The company launched in Dublin in October 2005, but is still at pre-revenue stage, according to Mitchell.

‘‘We’ve been working on this chip for the past 12months, but we’re in a business that requires a fair bit of capital. This funding will enable us to bring the product to market,” he said.

Mitchell said the company was in the process of demonstrating the product to handset manufacturers, and planned to have it available on consumer handsets by 2010.

‘‘We have been engaged with manufacturers, particularly in the Far East, for the past 18 months. We are just at the stage of demonstrating the product to them and would intend that this will be just the first of a series of product releases. We operate in a very competitive market so you have to keep introducing updates continually.”

Movidia employs 12 staff at its Dublin headquarters, 30 in Romania and eight in Hong Kong. It secured investment of €2.4 million prior to this latest funding round.’ ‘We set up in Romania because we needed a low-cost location for software development,” said Mitchell.

‘‘Hong Kong is where we base sales, customer support, manufacturing and some development.”

Mitchell said the full range of functionalities available to mobile users with the company’s new chip would include in-clip editing and the ability to add post-production effects.

‘‘The confidence shown by our investors in supporting Movidia highlights the value of our unique technology and, in light of current uncertainties in financial markets, provides strong validation of our Fabless business model, market strategy and product plans,” said Mitchell.

Sunday Business Post