Touchstone gets $12M for analog IC solutions

Touchstone Semiconductor, a developer of high-performance analog integrated circuit solutions, on Thursday announced that it has secured $12 million in Series A funding from Opus Capital and Khosla Ventures, making it the only semiconductor company in Silicon Valley to receive Series A financing in 2010. In addition to the funding, the company announced that Cathal Phelan, CTO of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has joined the board of directors, which currently includes Touchstone CEO Brett Fox, Gill Cogan of Opus Capital, and Naveed Sherwani, CEO of Open-Silicon.

Founded in 2010, the company was founded by industry experts from Maxim Integrated Products, Linear Technology, and Analog Devices, who came together to develop high-performance analog IC solutions for the challenges facing electronics companies. Touchstone boasts that its proprietary products cannot be found elsewhere in the analog market, including the TS1001 Op Amp, the industry’s only operational amplifier that uses only 0.8V while using 0.6µA of current. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure it’s impressive.

But apparently the high-performance analog industry is booming. “The high-performance analog market is the most profitable and capital-efficient segment of the semiconductor market,” said Gill Cogan of Opus Capital, in a statement. “There are very few teams with the capability to successfully enter this market, and Touchstone is one of them.”

The funds from this round will be used for research and development, sales, and marketing for the company’s suite of high-performance integrated circuits.

“We are proud to be the only semiconductor company in the Silicon Valley to receive Series A funding last year. Our investors recognized that the highly fragmented $40 billion analog market offers a tremendous opportunity for sustained growth,” said Brett Fox, president and CEO of Touchstone Semiconductor.  “We believe the combination of our extremely talented and committed team, industry expertise and proven business strategy will enable us to build a highly profitable company.”