XMOS recruits veteran chip exec Bagherli

Business news | December 9, 2022

By Peter Clarke

Edge processor and microcontroller vendor XMOS (Bristol, England) has appointed Jalal Bagherli as a special advisor to support funding and development.

Bagherli has a long and successful history in UK semiconductors most recently serving as CEO of Dialog Semiconductor plc., a provider of mixed-signal and power ICs for mobile and IoT applications (see Dialog confirms takeover talks with Renesas).

XMOS had annual sales of US$20.8 million in 2021 and is making progress in terms of profitability but states in its financial results that “it is likely that additional external funding will be required,” to invest in its future product roadmap. This includes a fourth generation of the xCore processor family, with the codename Quake, which is expected to offer lower power consumption.

Bagherli is well-qualified to help XMOS raise funds. He was responsible for the sale of Dialog to Renesas in 2021 for US$5.7 billion; the negotiation of a US$600 million licensing deal for transfer of IP and resources to Apple; and has raised significant funds in European capital markets and completed numerous acquisitions totalling over $1bn.

“Jalal is a leadership talent with an outstanding track-record in the semiconductor industry,” said Mark Lippett, CEO of XMOS, in a statement. “His visionary attitude towards semiconductor technologies and businesses, and his ability to communicate that to investors, will be vital to XMOS in the years to come.”

Journey ahead

Bagherli commented: “With a platform that empowers embedded software engineers to build systems previously only accessible to expensive and time-consuming hardware techniques, the XMOS proposition is truly compelling. I look forward to supporting the business on the journey ahead.”

XMOS also recently appointed Paul Goodridge as an advisor. Goodridge has experience as a CFO in both public and private companies. As CFO of CSR, Goodridge delivered its successful IPO in 2004 and helped grow the company into an US$800 million revenue business. Goodridge has spent the last half decade as a non-executive director for software companies with a combined exit value of over US$800m, and a consultant working with a large European VC.

XMOS was founded in 2005 as spin-out from Bristol University and is still a private company. In the calendar year 2021 it made an operating loss of US$3.3 million on sales revenue of US$20.8 million, up 55 percent on the previous year. XMOS made an adjusted EBITDA profit of US$2.0 million. The company was also the parent from which Graphcore Ltd. was spun out (see AI ‘unicorn’ Graphcore set to cut jobs).

Investors in XMOS include Foundation Capital, Infineon Technologies, Robert Bosch VC and Amadeus Capital. The XMOS advisory board also includes: Sir Robin Saxby, former CEO and chair of ARM Holdings plc and Professor David May a co-founder of XMOS.