A University of Limerick spin-out company has raised $10 million in venture capital funding and is using some of the funds to establish an office in the United States.

Powervation, a digital energy control company, plans to use the funding to bring its digital energy control semiconductor and software solutions to the market and also to expand its sales and marketing presence in the United States and Asia.

The funding round was jointly led by Intel Capital and Scottish Equity Partners.

Other investors included US-based firm Venture Tech Alliance and a follow-on investment from Irish venture capital firm Fourth Level Ventures.

Alan Dunne, Powervation’s general manager and cofounder, s aid Enterprise Ireland continued to support the company and had retained its original investment in Powervation.

Dunne said Powervation’s technology provided a digital control mechanism for the power supply which delivers power to microprocessors, and that the company’s main focus was on sectors such as computing, networking and telecommunications.

He said energy control technology had traditionally operated on an analogue basis, but had shifted to digital technology in the last two to three years.

Powervation’s technology has been developed at the Circuits and Systems Research Centre at the University of Limerick since 2001, supported by funding from Enterprise Ireland.

Last year, the research was commercialised and the company was founded. It raised about €500,000 in its first funding round, including private investment by its founders.

Dunne said Powervation had no customers signed up yet, as the company had largely been in a research and development phase since its establishment.

He said the firm was negotiating with a number of potential clients about the possibility of running trials in the first quarter of next year and that a number of companies had already expressed interest in Powervation’s technology.

The company currently employs seven people, including its founders.

Dunne said it was expected to hire six more staff by the end of March 2008. Powervation plans to expand its workforce to 20 by the end of next year.

As part of the company’s drive to expand its presence in the United States, it is using some of its latest funding to establish a permanent office in San Jose. Dunne said many of the company’s potential clients were in the Silicon Valley area so it made sense for the firm to have a presence in the area. He said the office would most likely be staffed by local employees.