Dear Members,

As we approach the end of the year, we look back at many wonderful events including the China Summit, the 8th Annual Cocktail Party, VIP reception, Seminars, Symposium, monthly meetings, panels on The Future of Medical Devices, Emerging Clean Technologies, Mobile Web Services, Real Estate, Next Generation Internet Search, Video Gaming,, Enterprise Software, and Stem Cells. We welcome all new members, advisory board members Raj Singh Kumar Sripadam, Dr. Jonathan Trent, and honorary members Ted Hoff the inventor of the Microprocessor and Kenneth Arrow Nobel Prize winner in Economics. We look forward to the second International Business Summit in Israel on June 29 – July 2, 2008 (see below) with a delegation of investors, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and renowned speakers from Silicon Valley and abroad, including Netherlands, China, England, and Spain.

Happy Holidays,
Gadi Behar
Managing Director

Future Events

January 2008

1. January 15th Monthly Meeting (Click Here to download into your calendar)
   Nano Technology: The Promise and the Fruition (Panel Discussion)
   
   
2. January 22nd Silicom neXtgEn (member’s kids)
   How GenX and GenY effect the Digital Media Industry (keynote and presentations)
   
   
3. January 24th Seminar No previous technical knowledge required (Click here to download)
   The RFID Revolution
   
   
4. January 27th VIP Reception (Gold Members)
   Doug Engelbart, Father of the Mouse
   

February 12th

Monthly Meeting (Click Here to download into your calendar)
"Cancer is Preventable: from the bench to the bed-side"

March 11th

Monthly Meeting (Click Here to download into your calendar)
Online Advertising Panel

If you have a problem to open the download file, right click and save to your computer

Recent Investments

Hooja is a stealth mode start-up based in Palo Alto, hard at work developing the first mobile and web application for personal and social search. The young and intriguing company recently closed a seed-round of over $1.2M, led by well known Silicon Valley investors such as Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook, Linkedin), Mike Maples (Motive, Digg, Twitter) and Levensohn Venture Partners. Investors from Silicom Ventures also took part in the round. Hooja is currently opening registration for a closed testing of its beta product.

HNL (Human Networks Labs) received some funding and a several others members expressed interest to join and finalize the due diligence process; see below.

Under Due Diligence

MathScore has developed patent-pending algorithms that adapt difficulty based on math performance and keeps students interested, enabling them to become better mathematicians through unlimited math practice. Doron Simon and Zvi Eintracht completed the due diligence and are leading the round.

HNL (Human Networks Labs) continues its progress in bringing its concept to reality. Carlos Garcia, founder, demonstrated the new prototype at the breakout meeting at Silicom Ventures in November. Using wireless directional technology, graphical icons were displayed on a mobile device screen to represent the precise physical location of people and things indoors as well as outdoors. The technology is implemented without requiring cell phone service, internet, GPS or infrastructure. Human Network Labs is now in due diligence talks with Silicom Ventures. Tal Lavian in leading the round.

Real Dice wins Smartphone Magazine's "Game of the Year" award 3rd time in a row, secures first major mobile operator deployment with Orange. Real Dice is building a converged social gaming community across web, mobile, smartphone and TV. For more info contact Galia Ben-Artzi.

NoiseFree, doing digital background noise reduction, presented last Tuesday and members began due diligence today with Lance Glasser evaluating technology and patents, and Dr. Daniel Ruben, MD, MBA, MPH evaluating the business model and valuation.

Spectros helped invent and develop the ischemia monitoring market (see newly-revised site at www.spectros.com for details). Now, there has been recognition on Wall Street of the importance of ischemia and perfusion, with IPOs and SPOs over the past 18 months in the area of optical monitoring of perfusion, raising street awareness of the problem and providing exit pathways. Spectros is now 6 months into introducing its proprietary T-Stat(tm) monitor to the neonatal ICU market, with an improved T-Stat funded out of sales and going before the FDA in early 2008. The first hospital site Spectros visited after the 2007 sales campaign kickoff at the Shareholders meeting will soon be using 6 T-Stats, a plan the company intends to replicate nationwide at other centers in 2008. Their second product, the FirstScan(tm) Lori, is a probe for detecting breast cancer which has now completed a 24 month development cycle and been replicated for clinical trials starting in 2008. The Lori probe fits the T-Stat monitor, providing a second path to sales when approved by the FDA anticipated by the end of 2009.

Nusym, the market traction for the product continues to be very high and the time consuming task of proving its utility in the context of individual companies is ongoing. Nusym is going through an intense evaluation phase with multiple leading edge semiconductor companies. One evaluation has successfully completed with a purchase order for one copy of the license expected in April at the conclusion of that company’s budget approval cycle. Another long running evaluation on a monster design is at a critical stage with results expected in the next 4-6 weeks. Third evaluation is going to start on Jan 15 and it is expected to be completed in 4-6 weeks. Having successfully concluded a series of preliminary evaluations off-site, we are also negotiating with a leading semiconductor company the criteria for an onsite evaluation.

SemiSolutions is a semiconductor IP company that developed innovative transistor structures that can reduce the sub-threshold leakage current in digital circuits. The company received its first test chip from IBM. SS have one patent issued, and two applications are under USPTO examinations; three more applications have been submitted in the US; one has been filed internationally (PCT) and subsequently applied for in Europe and in China. There is a list of additional inventions for five more patent applications. This brings the total to 12.

IMI—Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) and Integrated Materials (IMI) Announce Joint Strategic Marketing Alliance Program More

Knowlent brings Advanced Analog/Mixed-Signal Verification Environment to users of Synopsys. More

eASIC and Tensilica Partnership Delivers Free Diamond Processors. More

iFly (formally SkyVenture) an Indoor Skydiving tunnel opened officially last month after overcoming some challenges. If you want to enjoy a ride visit them at 31310 Alvarado Niles Rd Union City, CA 94587

Actual Pictures taken in iFlay

Ponte Solutions (formerly E-Z-CAD), a company in which Silicom's members invested in 2004, is making progress. It has been accepted by all major foundries, namely TSMC, UMC and IBM/Chartered/Samsung consortium, as part of their DFM (Design For Manufacturing) flow. It has ramped up its revenue with major clients such as Toshiba, Samsung, Qualcomm and Microsoft and is posed to make major advances with new products and new customers in 2008.

Devicescape Software announced in November that its industry leading Devicescape Wi-Fi auto-connect software is now available for use on the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod Touch. Devicescape Software announced in October that it is working with Nokia, the world’s largest mobile device maker, to make its industry leading software available on selected Wi-Fi enabled Nokia devices. The Devicescape Connect software, now available via the Nokia Download! More

Member’s Company Updates

Aerielle Inc. - come see their latest products at the 2008 CES

QSecure a payment platform company that was founded in 2003 and presented to Silicom members on 4/13/2004, raised $22M the past 2 years, in 3 funding rounds, with increasing valuation over $85M. The company has 20 employees, of which engineering accounts for 12, with 6 PhD scientists. QSecure have 4 issued patents, and 15 in prosecution, filing every 6 weeks.

ViVOtech releases Commercial-Grade Smart Management Software Following Successful Field Trials Across the Globe More

As 2008 will mark the 60th birthday of the state of Israel, air travel and hotel accommodations will be hard to find. If you plan to join us, we recommend that you make reservations ASAP. For prices please contact Kfir Nahum of ABT-US. For more information and registration.

Silicom {neXt-gEn}

Silicom Ventures {neXt-gEn} was recently formed to provide mentoring for young entrepreneurs through an assortment of workshops. The group is open to children and/or grandchildren of Silicom Ventures members and friends, ages 18 through 26. The first meeting took place on November 27th and featured Dr. Amos Barzilay that shared his personal story on Mergent, a company he sold for $200M as a case study. The next one is scheduled for January 22nd and will feature Ben Bajarin on the Topic “How GenY and GenX effect the Digital Media Industry” Click here for the program RSVP here

Welcome to:

Dr. Ted Hoff Honorary Member
Dr. Hoff received a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1958, an MS degree in 1959 and a PhD degree in 1962, both from Stanford University. In 1968 he joined the startup Intel Corporation, Although Intel was founded to develop semiconductor memory, in early 1969 it contracted to develop chips for a family of calculators to be sold under the name "Busicom." Hoff proposed a simpler design that included a simple general-purpose processor, programmed to perform various calculator functions. This alternate approach was accepted by the calculator company, and led to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. In 1975, Hoff started a group to develop LSI for the telephone industry. That group produced the first commercially available monolithic CODEC, a device which converts voice signals between analog and digital representations. In 1983, Hoff left Intel to become Vice President, Corporate Technology at Atari. Atari, owned by Warner Communications was sold in 1984. Hoff is listed as inventor or co-inventor on 17 U.S. Patents. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his role in the development of the microprocessor.

Dr. Kenneth Joseph Arrow Honorary Member
Kenneth Joseph Arrow is a co-winner (with Sir John R. Hicks) of the Nobel Prize for Economics. Perhaps his most startling thesis (built on elementary mathematics) was the “impossibility theorem” (or “Arrow's theorem”), which holds that, under certain conditions of rationality and equality, it is impossible to guarantee that a ranking of societal preferences will correspond to rankings of individual preferences when more than two individuals and alternative choices are involved. In one of his earliest articles, published in 1951, Arrow showed that a competitive economy in equilibrium is efficient. Furthermore, he demonstrated that an efficient allocation could be reached if a government uses lump-sum taxes to transfer wealth and then lets the market work toward equilibrium. One implication of his findings is that, if a government chooses to redistribute income, it should do so directly rather than through price regulations that could hamper the free market. Arrow's early work on equilibrium still stands as one of the reasons many economists oppose price controls. After receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951, Arrow taught at the University of Chicago (1948–49), at Stanford University (1949–68), and at Harvard University (1968–79). In 1979 he returned to Stanford University. Among Arrow's major publications are Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), Essays in the Theory of Risk Bearing (1971), and The Limits of Organization (1974).

Kumar S. Sripadam Advisory Board Member
Kumar is a veteran technology entrepreneur and has held many senior roles. He is actively involved in many early stage companies as a business and technology consultant. He is a principal and co-founder of Outdu.com. Most recently he was a Vice President for Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Righttag Inc, Santa Clara, CA. Prior to that he was the Founder, CEO and VP of Marketing & Business Development of Bluewave Networks. He has 18 years of experience in the high technology sector such as software, systems, internet and e-commerce. Mr. Sripadam was a member of the founding team at Redback Networks, a successful Networking company where he made key contributions to Systems and Hardware.Mr. Sripadam is on the Advisory Board of Paravirtual (Accenia), WorkMetro.com, Heavy Medical Systems (MedSimple), SkyVenture (iFly) Hollywood, Infinity Systems International etc. He is a Charter Member of TIE-SV. He is also active in many other Silicon Valley professional organizations. He holds an MSEE from Southern Illinois University. He is a member of the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Dr. Jonathan Trent Advisory Board Member
Jonathan Trent, PhD is a Senior Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. After receiving his Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dr. Trent spent six years in Europe at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and the University of Paris at Orsay in France. He returned to the U.S.A. to work at the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine at Yale Medical School for two years before establishing a biotechnology group at Argonne National Laboratory. In 1998 he moved to NASA Ames Research Center to be part of NASA’s Astrobiology program and established the Protein Nanotechnology Group in 1999. In addition to working at NASA, he is an Adjunct Professor in the Dept. of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz and is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.

Members Outing

Join other members that are planning to attend the CES on January 7-10 in Las Vegas. A few other members will be exhibitors such as Real Dice, Aerielle Inc. and Yoggie. Free registration is by December 29th, use code: AN5.

Travel

For those of you who travel a lot

-DISCLAIMER
Silicom Ventures is not a broker nor investment advisor and does not provide investment advice. This newsletter should not be relied on as such nor is it a substitute for investment advice. The information provided in this newsletter is based on sources believed to be reliable and in good faith, it is not guaranteed either as to accuracy or completeness, and independent verification should be sought before making any decisions.