MIPs is now developing an 8th generation architecture, based on RISC-V.
In 2017, China-backed Canyon Bridge bought Imagination and the US government insisted that MIPS must not go with Imagination to Canyon Bridge so MIPS was sold to Diosdado Banatao who made his first fortunes at Chips and Technologies and S3.
Banatao, by then a VC having founded Tallwood Venture Capital, switched the ownership of MIPS between various of his family-owned companies before selling it to Wave Computing, in which Tallwood was a major shareholder.
Then MIPS Technologies International Ltd., registered in the Cayman Islands, was created as an overseas subsidiary of Wave Computing to house the MIPS patent portfolio and licensing business
The MIPS patent portfolio and MIPS licensing rights were transferred, in 2018, to a Samoan-registered company called Prestige Century Investments whose chairman and founder was also chairman and founder of a Chinese-registered company.
Prestige reassigned the MIPS licensing rights to a subsidiary called CIP United Co. Ltd. registered in Shanghai, China which gave CIP control of the MIPS licensing rights for all new and existing customers in China, Hong Kong and Macau, and the right to develop new derivative technologies based on the MIPS architecture.
Wave went into bankruptcy in 2020 having raised $86 million in a Series E funding round the year before.
Wave’s emergence from bankruptcy yesterday follows the approval of the Company’s Chapter 11 plan of reorganization on February 10 by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California.
After a bankruptcy auction held in December 2020, Tallwood Venture Capital (“Tallwood”) emerged as the winner with a restructuring bid valued at $61 million.
Tallwood will take majority ownership of the reorganized company. Sanjai Kohli will continue to lead MIPS as CEO.
“Now that we have completed our Chapter 11 restructuring, I’m looking forward to growing our business and executing on our go-forward strategy,” said Kohli. “We have an incredible opportunity with our valuable MIPS architectures to scale this technology for a wide range of new customers. I would like to thank our whole team for their hard work and patience during the Chapter 11 process, and our advisors for guiding us to a successful outcome.”
“After working closely with all our stakeholders over the past several months, we arrived at a plan that will generate a strong recovery for creditors and put MIPS on solid financial footing for the future,” said Larry Perkins, Chief Restructuring Officer of MIPS. “This is a valuable business with incredible potential, and has emerged from bankruptcy as a much stronger company. I can’t wait to see what Sanjai and the team accomplish.”
