Yadro takes control of Russian RISC-V startup
Yadro is part of Russia’s IKS Holding JSC (Moscow, Russia) conglomerate and has gained control of St Petersburg based Syntacore JSC. The move will allow further integration of a Russian supply and manufacturing chain for servers and data storage products. Russia is pushing to end the use of Intel and AMD processors in information technology equipment, reports state.
The companies have not revealed the price paid for Yadro’s controlling interest but said Yadro had paid enough to secure 51 percent holding and a complete exit for previous venture capital investor TerraVC. Chips based on Syntacore intellectual property are being mass-produced by the company’s customers.
According to a Kommersant report the deal valued Syntacore at about $20 million. The same reported that Huawei competed for the stake to enable it to meet Russian localization requirements for sales into the Russian market.
“Yadro has acquired a controlling interest of 51 percent in Syntacore. Our investment is a unique opportunity not only to address the growing global demands for optimized microprocessors in the transformational era of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and autonomous systems, but also to create a solid expertise for developing a robust product portfolio for the Russian market and ICS Holding’s ecosystem of product companies on the basis of modern microprocessor design in Russia,” said Artem Ikoev, CTO of Yadro, in a statement.
In August 2019, RISC-V architecture was selected as the technological foundation for the European Processor Initiative (EPI). One of the initiative’s goals is to enable European Union’s independence in the strategic area of technology.
Alexander Redkin, Syntacore’s CEO, said: “The lion share of the investment will be allocated to the geographic expansion of the company. In addition, it will be utilized to develop new products that will considerably extend the IP portfolio and address the growing demands in microprocessor technologies optimized for IoT and AI products.”
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