French emulation firm raises $7.2M

Preparing for a considerable expansion, French verification provider Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE) has closed a second round of funding totaling $7.2 million. EVE is a provider of FPGA-based prototyping and emulation systems.

Based in Palaiseau, France, EVE was launched by the founders of Meta Systems, which was acquired by Mentor Graphics in the mid-1990s. EVE has a North American headquarters in San Jose, Calif.

Earlier this week, EVE announced the ZeBu-XL emulation system, which uses Xilinx Virtex-II 8000 FPGAs, has a 48 million ASIC gate top capacity, and rates a maximum performance of 30MHz. The announcement represents the company's move beyond low-cost FPGA rapid prototyping systems.

The new funding round was led by Auriga Partners, a French venture capital firm. Other participants include Rothschild, as well as series A investors including the 3i venture capital firm, Credit Lyonnais Private Equity, and Siparex.

The new investment will be used to expand EVE's R&D efforts and to boost the company's worldwide sales and support structure. EVE's announcement states the company may be considering future acquisitions as well.

- Richard Goering

EE Times