Quorum, cellphone chip maker, sold to Spreadtrum for $70M

November 19, 2007 | Matt Marshall

Spreadtrum Communications, a Shanghai maker of wireless chips, has acquired Quorum Systems, a San Diego, Calif., CMOS RF transceiver maker, and its unclear whether Quorum’s Silicon Valley investors were able to make a significant return.

The deal is valued at $70 million including $55 million in cash and $15 million in stock. It also includes a $6 million cash earn-out over two years, based on performance.
Quorum had raised almost $40 million in funding from firms like Band of Angels, CampVentures, Crescendo Ventures, Greylock Partners, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Since investors usually claim only a portion of a company when they invest, the sale price can’t have given them too much of a profit, though that is speculation on our part.

Quarum’s radio chip is embedded in cellphones. It is designed so that phones work with both Wi-Fi and GPS networks.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.