ARM, TI, Others Invest $48M in Power-focused Server Chip Start-up

Austin-based start-up Smooth-Stone has announced $48 million in funding from a syndicate of investors including ARM and Texas Instruments. Smooth-Stone will apply the capital directly to the final development and market delivery of its planned technology, described by the company as "low-power chips that will change the server market and the makeup of data centers." Although the product has not yet been released nor publically detailed, Smooth-Stone boasts that its technology will "bring the low-power virtues of mobile phone technology to servers and data centers."

"Our goal is to completely remove power consumption as an issue for the data center," Smooth-Stone CEO Barry Evans said in a statement. "Imagine that change for companies with a large presence on the Internet. They all deal with the reality that as the mass of information grows daily, so does their power consumption. Every day these companies are thinking about managing their data center sprawl. We want to make sure that space and power are not constraining their potential."

While little information on the company's technology is available, some are already suggesting Smooth-Stone could challenge Intel in the server space. Backing by such prominent players as ARM and TI supports the technology's claimed ability to provide data center performance at cell phone power levels.

"ARM invests in companies that are taking innovative approaches to solving industry challenges," said Bruce Beckloff, VP of corporate business development at ARM, in the statement. "Smooth-Stone's approach of bringing low power technology into the server domain made them a perfect fit for our investment model. There is a strong market need for a new class of data center platforms that offer a significant improvement in performance from both the energy and density perspectives, and ARM is excited to support Smooth-Stone's efforts to develop innovative chip solutions for this new class of platforms."

The company's tech-based leadership is also well experienced in Smooth-Stone's targeted field, as well as ARM-based architectures. Evans was most recently VP and general manager of Marvell's application processing business unit in the cellular and handheld group, acquired from Intel. He is credited as being responsible for the Xscale ARM-based handheld processor product line. Evans also served as Intel's director of marketing for application processors responsible for Xscale and low power x86 customer engagements and product strategies in the wireless handheld market.

Tech-wise, Evans is joined at the company by Larry Wikelius, co-founder and VP of software engineering, a 20-year technology industry veteran who was most recently VP for server and storage strategic alliances at Newisys; David Borland, co-founder and VP of hardware engineering, who spent time at AMD, Intel, and Marvell; and Mark Davis, CTO, who brings more than 25 years of high performance computing system, architecture, and application experience to Smooth-Stone.

ARM and TI are joined by Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC), which has in recent years poured billions into GlobalFoundries, as an investor in the round. Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Highland Capital Partners further contributed to the $48 million investment.

With this investment, ARM continues its seat on the Smooth-Stone board of directors, along with Evans and an independent, Howard Bubb. The three venture capital firms, Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Highland Capital Partners, as well as ATIC, also join the board.

Smooth-Stone was founded in January 2008, through the Austin Technology Incubator. The funding comes after Smooth-Stone in August 2009, received $250,000 in pre-seed funding from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The company has received additional funding from the state and other investors.

Smooth-Stone