Dear

Cambridge CMOS Sensors are a leading manufacturer of sensor solutions for monitoring air quality, with a wide range of miniature, ultra-low power gas sensors based on metal-oxide technology and infrared sensor components.

CMOS MEMS  platform technology provides a unique silicon platform for CCMOSS’ Metal Oxide (MOX) gas sensors and enables sensor miniaturisation, significantly lower power consumption and ultra-fast response times.

The Micro-hotplates are suspended in a high reliability membrane and act as heater elements for a metal oxide based sensing material. The material resistance will change due to reactions to selected gases and concentrations at temperatures between 200°C to 400°C. Through enabling very fast cycle times, advanced temperature modulation techniques can be used to ensure maximum sensitivity, stability and gas selectivity and minimise measurement times.

Advanced algorithms support the MOX gas sensors family, for maximum selectivity, drift compensation and for self-calibration, enabling easy and timely integration into a wide range of applications.

The Company’s CMOS MEMS platform technology, is also applied to infrared sources and detectors. These are designed specifically for high performance, high stability gas and materials sensing, as well as other applications. The infrared sources and detectors are used in a range of applications, including Non-Dispersive Infrared (NDIR) gas sensing, thermometer, spectroscopy, and Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) sensors for analysis of liquids and solids.

More detail can be found on the company's website here.

The Opportunity

Cambridge CMOS Sensors is a spin-out from University of Cambridge and exploiting innovative patented technology jointly developed in collaboration with the University of Warwick. The company aims to be a leading manufacturer of mid-infrared emitter, and technology provider of CMOS MEMS structures such as basic and smart micro-hotplates, semiconductor sensors (gas sensors, mechanical sensors, temperature sensors & flow sensors) and nano-MEMS and nanosensors.

CCMOSS technology is a platform technology that allows fabrication of highly advanced sensing structures at a fraction of the cost of the present technologies. The technology has the following advantages:

• Miniaturisation
• Reproducibility
• Stability
• Reliability
• High performance
• High thermal response
• High volume production capabilities

The company currently has a range of low power consumption, low cost products and is actively working with multi-national companies and involved in leading edge R&D projects for the next generation of micro and nanosensors.

The Market

The global market for sensors in consumer electronics and automotive industries is expected to grow from $24bn in 2009 to $43bn in 2015, and IDC/Gartner expect 2bn global annual smartphone sales by 2018.

The market is expected to have a high CAGR of 12.44% from 2010 to 2015 due to the increasing demand for sensors in products such as mobile phones, smartphones, game consoles, and laptops.

CCMOSS technology can be deployed in several large size sensor markets, to give a total addressable market of $8.4bn.

Progress

Cambridge CMOS Sensors was founded in 2008 by Florin Udrea, Julian Gardner and Bill Milne. The three founders have worked together for over 20 years and have a successful record of transferring research to industry. Anne Dobrée, Head at Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds, is Chair. CCMOSS currently has 15 employees.  Professor Florin Udrea has won a Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal award for his outstanding commercial success, which can be seen here.

Since the last funding round in 2013, the company has made strong commercial and technical progress across various fronts, including:

• Significant customer traction in Consumer & Industrial markets - mobile phone design-in 
• New Gas Sensor Products developed and sampling to customers 
• Significant team development, with key industry experience now on-board 
• Highly effective sales representation in Taiwan, China, Korea 
• High Volume, Low Cost Asia supply chain established 
• Key technical breakthroughs to enable new sensor product range 
• Effective partnerships progressed 
• Key Demos rolled out to great success
• Sales likely to start in early 2015

Nat's previous roles include Managing Director, Business Development, Marketing and Engineering Management roles in technology companies ranging from SMEs to global players. 

Florin Udrea, Founder & CTO, has over 20 years of experience in smart technologies, microsensors, MEMS, and power devices. He has extensive track records in working with start-up companies from the University of Cambridge. For example, he is one of the two founders of CamSemi, a very successful company dedicated to energy-efficient power ICs and power management. He is also a Professor of Semiconductor Engineering at Cambridge University and is an inventor of more than 70 patents. Florin Udrea has been a consultant with several leading edge companies in the field of sensors and power electronics.

Julian Gardner, Founder & Chief Scientist, is a Professor of Electronic Engineering and Director of Cognitive & Neural Systems Centre at Warwick University & also a Senior Fellow in Cambridge University. He is Head of the Microsensors and Bioelectronics Laboratory with 25 years of experience in microsensors, signal and data processing & micro/nanoengineering. Prof. Gardner has been a consultant with several start-ups in microsensors, such as AlphaMOS (France), Nanotecture Ltd UK), Cyrano Sciences (USA), Health & Safety Executive (UK), but also Hewlett-Packard (USA), and Honeywell (USA). Prof. Gardner is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK).

Foysol Chowdhury, R&D Director of Projects, has over 20 years industrial experience in integrated circuits designs gained from Marconi Defence Systems, LSI Logic, Micron Technology Inc., and more recently worked as a Technical Lead, with Cambridge Semiconductor Ltd. (CamSemi), from early stage of the company start-up till a very successful first product launch. He held a number of post-doctoral positions at various universities and recently employed as a Senior Research Fellow, at the University of Warwick.

Simon Stacey, VP Engineering & Operations, joined from Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), 20 years semiconductor experience, with particular expertise in product engineering and advanced packaging. Simon has key relationships with Asian high volume, low cost suppliers 

Paul Wilson, Director of Product Marketing, joined from Xaar, and was previously at CSR, Wolfson Microelectronics, Freescale Semiconductor and Philips in a range of senior product management and application roles. 

Investment Rationale

We believe that CCMOSS is developing a game-changing technology platform in the field of Sensors, demonstrated by its early engagement with leading global MNCs and its ability to attract substantial grant funding. The technology has multiple applications but the early consumer targets could be very large. The founders have extensive experience in this technology and, as importantly, have experience of founding and taking other university start-ups to successful financial exits. 

Valuations as of 10th June2014. Net NAV includes income tax relief and fees on investment

Parkwalk’s current portfolio consists of 27 companies, which have raised in excess of £250m of funding between them since 2010 and over 600 patents protect their technology and processes.
Overall, Funds I-IV’s portfolio comprises of 9% Series ‘A’, 33% Series ‘B’, 25% Pre-IPO and 33% AIM listed.  

Past performance is no guide to future performance. The price of a fund can fall as well as rise. Investors may receive back less than originally invested.