TD Shepherd is pleased to announce our role as a strategic advisor to Phonemic, one of the Top 40 Startups of HTVD22!
Founded in 2020, Phonemic is a Polish startup specializing in design services for FPGA and ASIC. With a focus on efficient hardware implementation of compute-intensive algorithms, their expertise spans Digital Signal Processing (5G, LTE), cryptography, system-level design, and integration.
Thanks to a strong team of engineers experienced in the semiconductor industry, Phonemic covers a wide spectrum of hardware development — navigating from algorithm optimization on the mathematical level along with RTL design and verification to FPGA bring-up, all the way up to embedded software development.
Phonemic’s project portfolio includes full development of complex SoC on FPGA, custom specialized IP-Core development, and hardware acceleration of customers’ target applications.
We look forward to contributing to Phonemic’s ongoing success and innovation in the deep-tech industry.
One of the challenges that comes with design services is the cyclical nature of the services business. When the economy tightens and corporates are watching their operational expenses, the first step will be to halt any external contracts/contractors which are not deemed absolutely essential.
Whereas the earlier (staircase) model is a good approach in scaling up revenue and creating new revenue streams, the foundation of the company is still based on the service model: headcount continues to be the main driver (typically up to 60-70% of revenue). In terms of (enterprise) valuation the additional revenue streams, however, will already make a significant difference.
Design services companies typically start small (some exceptions when it concerns management buy-outs) and natural growth is a slow process as it requires hiring and training of engineers based on/driven by the revenue stream of the company. Growth of business is tied to growing the team and it is not always easy to find the engineers.