5.Helic

Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

Starting up in Athens... back in 2000

Idea based on

research @ NTUA

2 EE founders

Some leadership

skills…

1 laptop

A big market…

No money!

A lot of initiative…

Drafted BP!


Starting up in Athens... back in 2000

Pros:

• Engineering talent

• Relative lower payroll

• Grants from EU and Greece

• Living in Greece

Cons:

• Away from market center of gravity: Silicon Valley

• Lack of market visibility

• Far away from expert VCs

• No entrepreneurial spirit

• Young people risk averse

• Wrong ecosystem for high-tech startups


Raising money… in Athens

CEO: “…give me money to

build prototype…”

Investor: “…show me paying

customer for your product…”

The famous fund-raising dialog…:

CEO: “…if I sold finished product

I wouldn’t need money…”

Investor: “…technology not

proven…I’ll pass…”



Greek VCs were:

• Not doing

startups…

• Risk averse!

• Didn’t invest > €1M

• Had no domain

expertise

• No entrepreneurs

• Had no global

network



Investors believed in the mgmt team because

they didn’t understand the technology


Operating from Athens

Hard work … 24/7

Imagination, ambition, persistence,

patience

A lot of traveling to meet with

customers in US and Asia!

Customer support in different

timezones… in the middle of the night


Brief profile

Helic founded May 2000 – team from NTUA

H/Q in CA, sales US, JPN, DE

2000: 5 2009: 45 employees

Cutting-edge world-class technology

in EDA and IC design

Aug 2000: 1st high-tech company in

Greece raising VC financing

Dec 2003: VeloceRF™ 1st EDA product to market

Profitable and cash-flow positive since 2004

Fast penetration in global market: customers 15

out of 20 big semiconductor players


Our DNA

Hard work and no talking

Develop world-class technology to help major IC

suppliers get chips to production fast

Value our people

Ambition and vision to build global awareness for

quality, reliability and innovation

Invest in world-class Greek-origin research: Greek

Universities


Helic sites

R&D and sales offices

Salonica, GR


Global R&D investments growth despite downturns

The semiconductor market


The EDA market

Continuously growing despite downturns


Our EDA products


Helic technology thoroughly validated

BiCMOS CMOS

Silicon Foundry 0.35um 0.18um 0.18um 0.13um 90nm 65nm 40-

45nm

TSMC

IBM

Fujitsu Microelectronics

Toshiba

Freescale

STMicroelectronics

Jazz Semiconductor

Sony

Panasonic

UMC

AMS

OKI

Intel


Investments and grants

Equity financing 2000-2008: $7Μ in 3 rounds

Investors:• Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems founder and

angel investor of Google

• Deutsche Bank AM

• Big Japanese strategic investor

• Big US strategic investor

• Alpha Finance

• Friends & Family, others

Grants: 2007-2009: $5M• Greek state, Corallia


Competitive advantage

Experienced management team in global biz dev

and product development

Healthy financials:

• Current assets > $5M

• No debt

• Cash-flow positive

Adopted technology:

• > 40 corporate customers

• > 500 design-engineers using our products

Smart money: Reference investors in semicondutor

industry


Thank you for joining our event!

5.Helic

Business

Transcript of 5.Helic