3i, a world leading venture capital and private equity company today announces that one of its investments, u-blox holding AG has achieved a successful IPO on the Swiss Stock Exchange, bringing the total size of the offering to over CHF135.6m ($117m).

Swiss based u-blox, which 3i backed during the technology slump of 2001, is a specialist provider of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology with design wins in the automotive and mobile devices sectors.

The successful IPO of u-blox today, gives the company a market capitalisation of CHF 318.4m ($274m) with the share price around 20% above issue price at day end. This strong result marks the first fabless semiconductor IC company to IPO on a European stock exchange since 2004, including 3i backed CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio) which floated on LSE that year. 

Hansjoerg Sage, 3i Director on the u-blox board, commented “We are delighted to have worked with the u-blox team over the last 6 years, through some challenging times in the technology markets, to achieve this impressive result. This is testament to the strength of the management team and primarily the product portfolio which is leading in the market today.”

Thomas Seiler, Chief Executive Officer of U-blox added “U-blox intends to use the net proceeds from the newly issued registered shares for the implementation of its growth strategy and the further expansion of its market position."