Super-fast chip firm speeds to £30m flotation

A Bristol company which has invented a super-fast microchip is coming to the AIM market to raise funds to boost marketing of its technology.

A Bristol company which has invented a super-fast microchip is coming to the AIM market to raise funds to boost marketing of its technology.

ClearSpeed Technology, which launched its first chip design last year, is raising around £10m in a flotation that will value the company at an estimated £30m. The broker, KBC Peel Hunt, is expected to complete the fund-raising in the next few days.

ClearSpeed's expertise is in "parallel processing", where a microchip can work on several tasks at once, rather than in series. Its first, a 32-bit chip, the CS301, was launched to industry fanfare last year, and the company has won Department of Trade and Industry funding to develop a 64-bit chip.

Funded so far by business angels in Britain and the United States, the company will use the proceeds of its flotation to continue development work and market its products for use in research computers for biotechnology, nanotechnology and radar and sonar systems, among many other potential applications.

The company, which has offices in Bristol and Los Gatos, California, is headed by Tom Beese, its chief executive, a former executive at Hewlett Packard.

The share placing, which has been extended from an original £5m, was said last night to be oversubscribed at about £10m.