October 09, 2020 by Luke James
In a round led by IQ Capital—alongside Bloc Ventures and the IP Group—UK-based semiconductor IP-Core (intellectual property-core) company AccelerComm has raised £5.8 million in Series A funding for its 5G research and development.
Founded in 2016, AccelerComm, a Southampton University spinout, has developed a channel coding IP that reduces transmission errors in mobile, small cell, and satellite communications.
Now the company has raised £5.8 million in Series A funding, which AccelerComm will use to scale up its operations and expand into the global market (such as the U.S.), to keep up with demand from customers, including mobile operators, connected device manufacturers, and telecoms equipment vendors.
According to the company, a portion of the money will also be spent on developing its internet protocol technology business. The funding round was led by venture capital firm IQ Capital, with other contributions coming from Bloc Ventures and the IP Group.
5G investment concept. Image Credit: Freepik.
AccelerComm states that its IP, or intellectual property, for the various aspects of 5G communications significantly reduces latency and power consumption, all while improving spectral efficiency. The company’s range of software and hardware products can also be used by telecommunications providers to combat interference, noise, and poor signal strength in their applications.
Despite its widespread rollout, 5G can still suffer from low data rates and a poor quality of service where coverage is sparse, preventing operators from deploying 5G applications—such as those relevant to the industrial IoT, automotive, and virtual reality—to their full potential. With its IP, AccelerComm seeks to solve this problem and enable 5G networks to perform as promised.
The Series A funding round brings the total amount raised by AccelerComm to more than £8.3 million. In its previous funding round in 2019, the start-up made £2.5 million (on top of a smaller amount in 2016 shortly after its formation).
As AccelerComm’s CEO, Tom Cronk, explains: “From gaming and VR to automated robotic manufacturing lines and telemedicine, the use cases on the road to 5G appear almost limitless. But a critical roadblock remains: latency.
“For more than 15 years, a research team led by Professor Maunder, first at the University of Southampton and now at AccelerComm, has been working to solve the challenge to deliver on the 5G promise of a low-latency, high-throughput experience.”
Cronk added that the Series A funding round will help AccelerComm to further develop and deploy its “market-leading technology” to help improve the efficiency of communication networks for the years ahead.
