LONDON — Silicon Hive BV (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) has said it has received $7 million in funding this month. The round was led by Intel Capital and joined by existing investors New Venture Partners and TVM Capital.

The money is set to be used to expand the global sales, marketing and customer support organization, which operates from offices in Eindhoven, Bangalore, Tokyo, Seoul and Silicon Valley. Also, the company intends to release additional HiveGo products for image and video processing.

HiveGo products combine Silicon Hive's HiveFlex processors with specialized software building blocks to implement functions on multimedia integrated circuits for consumer electronics.

Silicon Hive has also signed a business agreement with Intel for potential product opportunities using Silicon Hive's technology, covering the entire spectrum of mobile products.

"During the past year, Silicon Hive experienced significant growth worldwide gaining several tier one semiconductor vendors as customers. We work closely with them to address the growing need for programmable solutions to make their flagship semiconductor platforms more cost-effective and future-proof. We are excited about Intel Capital joining our investor base as we follow that mission," said Atul Sinha, founder and CEO of Silicon Hive.

"Silicon Hive's technologies strike a balance across the vectors of low power consumption, high processing power, and programmability," said Ashish Patel, managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa, Intel Capital. "Consumer electronics have to perform increasingly complex computational tasks such as communications, imaging and video processing, and Silicon Hive is well positioned to capitalize on this trend for next-generation mobile devices."

Silicon Hive's products enable semiconductor and consumer electronics companies to make fully programmable integrated circuits for imaging, video and wireless communication applications. Programmability reduces time-to-market and adds flexibility through software upgrades. Examples of products designed with Silicon Hive technology include a digital camera image processor, a Full HD picture processor, WiMAX baseband chip, and a multi-standard digital TV receiver.

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