“Don’t even tell you spouse what you’re working on”

Updated

Somehow, entrepreneur Dan Dobberpuhl managed to keep his 150-employee chip company stealth for two years in gossipy Silicon Valley.

Today, he has launched chip company P.A. Semi. He concealed his team inside two floors of the McAffee high-rise buildling in Santa Clara, and told new recruits they’d have to get on board before they found out what the company was doing. He told them not to tell their spouses what they were working on.

This is the same guy who sold his last start-up, Sibyte, for $2 billion, to Broadcom. P.A. Semi focuses on a low-power-use chip, and it has plenty of…

competition. Our colleague Dean Takahashi has the story. It is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Venrock Associates and Silicon Valley Bank, though we’re not sure exactly how much.

Update: Private Equity Week says (scroll down): “According to a regulatory filing, the company raised around $33 million in Series B funding last November from firms that included Bessemer Venture Partners and Venrock Associates. It had raised $3 million in Series A funding in April 2004.”