Smart capital for Europe's chip industry
Market watch
Smart capital for Europe's chip industry
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02 July 2024
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Private Equity
Reading time: 2 minutes
Thibault Basquin
Member of the Executive Committee
Ardian Semiconductor is the second thematic industrial fund that the company has launched, after hydrogen. This industry has huge strategic importance for Europe and it is poised for rapid growth, driven by mega trends including the adoption of AI, growth in data centers, electrification of vehicles and the spread of automation through multiple industrial sectors.
Supply chain shocks caused by the pandemic highlighted the need for Europe to reinforce its position in domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Plans to construct several new foundries in Europe have been announced by global leaders including TSMC, Intel, GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics. These new facilities will require a strong ecosystem of suppliers and service providers, which Ardian Semiconductor has been launched to support.
Our research highlighted a lack of strategic capital for mid-cap European companies at a time when many of them must double, triple or quadruple in size.
We will invest primarily in mid-cap European companies focused on semiconductor equipment, test and assembly, IP licensing and software. Europe has a number of high-quality established mid-cap players in these segments, but they suffer from a shortage of specialist capital and strategic support to accelerate their growth. In addition, Europe is also home to the three world’s leading semiconductor research centers, with which we intend to form partnerships for our companies, strengthening the industry’s ecosystems.
To pursue this strategy, we have partnered with Silian Partners, a team of five seasoned European semiconductor executives that have decades of international experience. By combining their industrial knowledge and strategic vision with Ardian’s institutional relationships, financial strength and investment expertise, we will offer founders and management teams the support they are seeking. We believe that developing an investment team that is at the heart of major technological trends will both deliver attractive returns to LPs and bring benefits to many of Ardian’s investment teams and portfolio companies.
We invite you to watch or re-watch our video series on Ardian Semiconductor:
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