Shareholders and new investors, including the Irish taxpayer, have invested €38m in Movidius, which booked a loss of €7.5m in 2013 and had retained losses of €35m. The investment is one of the largest VC investments ever in Ireland for a technology company.

Investors include Summit Bridge Capital, ARCH Venture Partners and Sunny Optical Technology Group, as well as early investors including Atlantic Bridge Capital, DFJ Esprit, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, AIB Seed Capital Fund and Capital-E.

The Irish taxpayer is investing an undisclosed amount through the China-Ireland Growth Technology Fund, which is funded by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. ISIF, the new name for the Pensions Reserve Fund, was described as lead investor.

Movidius founders David Moloney & Sean Mitchell

Movidius, founded by Sean Mitchell and David Moloney, said it will use the financing to hire 100 additional staff. They will be involved in software and hardware product innovation in visual sensing for virtual reality headsets, drones, home automation and wearables.

In Association with

“Movidius has pioneered an entirely new class of cost-effective, low power and high performance processors, software and development tools, and this platform enables our customers to implement visual sensing that aims to mirror human vision capabilities,” said Remi El-Ouazzane, CEO of Movidius.

“This significant investment of capital provides us with the resources to expand strategically, innovate constantly and extend our market leadership,” he claimed.