Royal Philips Electronics gets Systemonic

Systemonic, a leading developer of silicon system solutions for multi-protocol, multi-band wireless local area networks (WLANS) have signed an agreement to be acquired by Royal Philips Electronics from financial investors Apax Partners Funds, Atlas Venture, Bayview, Krone mt and Lehman mt and from corporate investors Raytheon and Sony Ventures. Details of the transaction were undisclosed.

Founded in 1999 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Dresden, the company has received three rounds of investment – its first in June 1999 as a start-up and two expansion rounds in November 2000 and most recently in March 2002.

Alexander Bruehl, principal at Atlas Venture and Christian Reitnerger, principal at Apax Partners, said: “As investors in Systemonic we are delighted that the belief we had in the company and its technology at an early stage has been validated. In an extremely difficult climate for early stage technology companies Systemonic has delivered innovation and performance and now has been acquired by a world class company.” The acquisition also demonstrates the high potential of spin-offs from German universities.

Systemonic has 89 employees located in San Jose, California; Maynard, Massachusetts, and Dresden, Germany. The company’s 802.11a/b and g wireless LAN silicon technology is experiencing tremendous growth in computing and networking products for home and office. This technology will be used in virtually every consumer and business product that needs high-speed wireless connectivity to digital content. The 802.11a/b and g wireless LAN standards are expected to dominate the wireless connectivity market in the next two years.