TimeSys raises $6M funding, hires marketing talent

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Jun. 14, 2005

[Updated 3PM] -- TimeSys has secured $6M in a round of funding led by Adams Capital Management, with participation from Philips Electronics, The Hillman Company, and CEO Larry Weidman (pictured). TimeSys will use the money to expand commercial reach. Additionally, the company has hired Michel Genard as executive VP of marketing and business development.

All four named parties in TimeSys's current funding round are previous investors that took part in the company's initial initial $15.5M round in March of 2002 and its second $8M round in October of 2003.

Weidman says TimeSys currently has a lot of momentum, and is "rapidly closing in" on profitability. In particular, Weidman says the company's focus on Linux development tools and services -- what the company calls "Linux Customization Solutions" -- positions it well to capitalize on a strong trend toward "roll-your-own" embedded Linux, among companies that customize Linux in-house for use in products of all kinds. "We feel good about our product line, and its acceptance in the marketplace," Weidman said.

TimeSys said it would use the money from its previous, second round of funding to improve its Linux development tools, and within a month, the company shipped the first Eclipse-based tools that supported not only its own embedded Linux BSPs (board support packages) and distributions, but any Linux at all, including both 2.4 and 2.6-series kernels. Additionally, the company has said that its TimeStorm tools support the entire embedded Linux development cycle, from board bring-up to application development.

Interestingly, embedded giant Wind River made similar claims when it shipped its Eclipse-based Workbench toolsuite eight months later, saying the product supports the complete embedded development cycle, and works with any Linux.

TimeSys followed up in November of last year by shipping some of the first Eclipse 3.0-based tools for embedded Linux development; Wind River bumped its WorkBench suite to Eclipse 3.0 at about the same time.

Additionally, TimeSys was among the very first embedded Linux vendors to support and ship 2.6-series Linux kernels, and the company was the first to register a telecom-oriented distribution for compliance with the Carrier Grade Linux 2.0 specification. It leveraged its 2.6 experience and CGL 2.0 expertise in February, when it initiated a Linux 2.6 upgrade program for telecom equipment vendors.

More recently, TimeSys launched an "On-Board program" to help silicon vendors self-certify chip and development board BSPs for use with TimeStorm tools, along with two network services that help embedded developers test and validate customized kernels and BSPs. And, it has brought out processor-optimized versions of TimeStorm tools for Freescale PowerPC chips, Intel XScale IOPs (storage processors), and other embedded chips and architectures.

Despite its demonstrations of industry leadership, TimeSys remains fairly small, with about 45 employees. The company took an important step toward growth today, however, announcing its first significant investment in marketing talent with the hiring of embedded industry veteran Michel Genard, who will lead marketing and business development efforts.

Michel Genard

Genard will work in TimeSys's growing San Jose office, which currently has half a dozen employees. He is charged with developing TimeSys's product and services roadmap, expanding global sales channels and strategic partnerships, and overseeing customer engineering -- essentially driving delivery of the company's Linux customization solutions program, TimeSys says.

Genard has more than 20 years of senior management experience in the embedded device market, most of it at Wind River, where he served as Platforms chief and leader of the standalone tools division, as well as starting up two Wind River subsidiaries while based in Europe. Genard also served briefly as VP of marketing for Jaluna, which markets virtualization software that works with embedded Linux.

Weidman said, "Michel is a premier product strategist and marketer with a well-known record of success in the embedded industry. His significant experience positioning new products and building the relationships needed to deliver them on a global basis will be vital as we enter our next growth phase."

Genard said, "TimeSys [is] the first commercial supplier to enable embedded Linux developers to leverage the flexibility of open source while maintaining full control over the unique requirements of their project. A recent embedded.com survey shows that about 50 percent of embedded developers consider Linux but don't adopt it because of the lack of tailored, commercial-grade solutions and support. That's exactly what Linux Customization Solutions deliver, placing TimeSys in a very strong position to lead a transformation of the embedded Linux device market."

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