First Footing In The North East

The momentum behind the Connect network was given a lift in the North East with an inaugural Investment Conference held in Newcastle. Glenn Collinson, a co-founder of Cambridge Silicon Radio gave a keynote speech. CSR was a spin out from Cambridge Consultants in 1998 and was lucky to raise their seed funding before the technology bubble burst.

He emphasised that they started out with global ambitions and always believed as a team they could win against the likes of Intel by being more fleet of foot and innovative. They benefitted from Bluetooth being a royalty-free open standard and, as such, a great market to go for (and never having less than $30M in the bank having raised a total of $85M in VC funding!).

Glenn commented that being first is not necessarily good. Those that follow learn from your mistakes and the education/development of the market. Market pioneers take most of the arrows!