Smoothstone

Our latest investment, SmoothStone, was announced today.  (See below this post for links to press on the company)

 

By changing the fundamental power economics at the server-CPU level, SmoothStone has the chance to lower energy consumption in data centers by orders of magnitude. At the same time, by leveraging ARM’s industry leading architecture, SmoothStone can utilize existing software infrastructure elements, meaning customers will not have to change their applications – a must have for enterprises and web-services providers.

 

Barry Evans, SmoothStone’s CEO has assembled a world-class team of chip, embedded software, systems engineering and operating system experts to help build his ambitious dream into a reality. We’re hiring aggressively in Austin, so please let me know if you are interested in joining a startup that can really make a big difference.

 

The funding announcement listed six investors, Flybridge among the group, who provided the capital to SmoothStone. What’s remarkable to me is not just the magnitude of the commitment, $48m, but the composition of the syndicate – with Battery, Highland, ATIC, ARM, and Texas Instruments  joining together. It’s the first true industry/VC partnership I have seen from the outset in an investment, and speaks to the magnitude of the idea and also of the capital needed to pull it off!

 

Our diligence effort in SmoothStone was really a full-team program at Flybridge, and I am proud of the work our team did. Backing a new processor startup is not an obvious move. Especially since it violates some of my firmly-held tenets of avoiding highly-complex digital semiconductor designs that require a lot of software. But to Barry and his team’s credit, they have put together a very thoughtful plan to mitigate many of the biggest risks.

 

There’s much work to be done and very tough entrenched competition. But there’s a huge opportunity to change some of the basic foundation of computing, without forcing a disruption to the software value chain, which is really exciting.

 

• Computerworld/Networkworld/PC World http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180761/Chip_startup_seeks_to_lower_electric_bills_in_data_centers
• Cnet http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20013683-64.html
• ZDnet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ready-for-arm-based-server-chips-smooth-stone-hopes-so/38050
• EE Timeshttp://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4206171/ARM–ATIC–TI-invest–48M-in-server-chip-startup-
• WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704296704575432182313584468.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
• Venture Beat http://deals.venturebeat.com/2010/08/15/an-atom-bomb-aimed-at-intel-smooth-stone-raises-48m-for-low-power-arm-server-chips/
• GigaOm http://cloud.gigaom.com/2010/08/15/smooth-stone-gets-48m-for-arm-servers/
• New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16chip.html?ref=business
• Austin American Statesman http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/chip-startup-smooth-stone-raises-48m-in-backing-861420.html
•  Xconomy http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/08/16/boston-vcs-back-smooth-stone/
• Greentech Media http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/smooth-stone-to-take-arm-energy-savings-to-data-centers/