Enpirion Plugs Into $16M Series E

VentureWire

By Scott Denne

Enpirion Inc. has secured $16 million in Series E funding that it hopes will take it to profitability and keep it ahead of the competition for its power conversion chips.

New investor QuestMark Partners led the January round with participation from the company's existing investors, which include Canaan Partners, Columbia Capital, RRE Ventures, SAS Investors and Scale Venture Partners, said Charlie Mera, the company's vice president of marketing. He declined to disclose the company's valuation.

Enpirion makes switching DC-DC converter chips with all components on a single chip. Traditionally, these chips don't include an inductor, which stores power and releases the appropriate voltage when necessary. Including the inductor on the chip reduces the amount of real estate taken by the converter, Mera said.

This setup also enables the company to sell into markets that were previously served by linear converters, which are very inefficient but necessary for products that are sensitive to magnetic interference, such as audio and video equipment, Mera said.

Enpirion faces no shortage of competitors, including Texas Instruments Inc., Intersil Corp., Maxim Integrated Products Inc. and Volterra Semiconductor Corp.

"Clearly there's a number of larger players in the space, but [Enpirion has] been able to develop some impressive performance," said Tim Krongard, a partner with QuestMark, adding that Enpirion has been able to compete across several product categories, while its competition is focused on just one or two.

Though Mera said Enpirion's product development is ahead of those companies, its lead won't last forever. National Semiconductor Corp. recently released an integrated device, and several other competitors have started to run their chips at a higher frequency, the first step toward shrinking the inductor, he said.

The proceeds of the round will be used to expand Enpirion's development capabilities and expand its product portfolio, Mera said.

Enpirion has more than 300 customers and has had its products built into devices such as blade servers, network interface cards, cellular data cards and set-top boxes, Mera said, though he declined to disclose the company's revenue.

The company last raised financing with a $10 million Series D round in October 2007. It has now raised more than $70 million in venture capital. It expects this round to carry it to profitability, Mera said.

Enpirion has just under 60 employees. Krongard has joined the company's board of directors alongside Richard McGinn of RRE Ventures, Hemant Kanakia of Columbia Capital, Rob Herb of Scale Venture Partners and Eric Young of Canaan Partners.