Pete Magowan
Pete Magowan knows about growing technology companies. He joined ARM in 1992 as the 19th employee, 6 months after the initial spin-out, when ARM was based in a small barn west of Cambridge. Apart from the CEO he was the first commercial employee of the company and took initial responsibility for marketing and over time sales as well as rolling up his sleeves to deliver a number of the other functions that must be covered in a start-up. In ARM's case sales meant non-exclusive licensing and it was Pete's team who executed the licensing roll-out and who took ARM into end market segments - most famously the mobile phone market where ARM enjoys a dominant position today. Growth was exceptional and Pete joined the main Plc Board in 2000. By the time he left, after 10 years of frantic activity, the company was valued at £3bn.
As an investor Pete has applied the lessons learned at ARM. He initially moved on to take a General Partner role at Venture Capital investor Alta Berkeley and is still involved with the fund today - he remains a Non-Exec Director of Frontier Silicon which he initially introduced to Alta Berkeley as a 4 man start-up. Pete is also a Non-Exec Director of Lime Microsystems (RF chip devices) and Imbera Systems (embedded electronics packaging). He has also participated as an active angel investor in a number of start-ups, including chip company Amphion Semiconductor from the moment it span out of Queen’s University Belfast until its exit to Conexant, mobile games publisher Superscape Plc which grew to be listed in London and then sold to NASDAQ listed Glu Mobile, and PA Semi sold to Apple in 2008. Pete's companies have raised approximately £150m of technology Venture Capital.
Pete lives in Cambridge and continues to invest in, promote and advise investors and entrepreneurs involved in technology start-ups. The technologies that interest him have a particular emphasis on the application of microchips, and also include mobile communications, games, electronic devices and software applications.