Sony Acquires Altair Semiconductor For $200M

January 24, 2016 | Japanese conglomerate Sony is set to buy Israeli semiconductor company Altair Semiconductor for $200 million. Established in 2005 by former Texas Instruments executives CEO Oded Melamed, CTO Yigal Bitran and VP Marketing Eran Eshed, Altair Semiconductor develops high performance single-mode Long Term Evolution (4G LTE) chipsets, including baseband processors, RF transceivers and a range of reference hardware products used in IoT. Since inception, the company has raised $135 million, including equity funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) (21%), BRM Capital (18%), Bessemer Venture Partners (14%), Giza Venture Capital (13%), and Walden Israel (7%). Each of the founders holds a 0.5% stake in the company and will likely earn $1 million from the exit.