Helic was founded in 2000 in Athens, Greece by two electrical engineering founders from the National Technical University of Athens. It developed cutting-edge EDA software and raised venture capital financing as one of the first high-tech startups in Greece. By 2009, Helic had grown to 45 employees with R&D and sales offices in California and Greece, over 500 design engineers using its products, and 15 of the top 20 semiconductor companies as customers. It had become a profitable, cash-flow positive company pioneering high-tech entrepreneurship in Greece.

1. Copyright © 2000-2009 Helic, Inc.

2. Starting up in Athens... back in 2000
 Idea based on
research @ NTUA
 2 EE founders
 Some leadership
skills…
 1 laptop
 A big market…
 No money!
 A lot of initiative…
 Drafted BP!
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

3. Starting up in Athens... back in 2000
 Pros:
• Engineering talent
• Relative lower payroll
• Grants from EU and Greece
• Living in Greece
 Cons:
• Away from market center of gravity: Silicon Valley
• Lack of market visibility
• Far away from expert VCs
• No entrepreneurial spirit
• Young people risk averse
• Wrong ecosystem for high-tech startups
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

4. Raising money… in Athens
The famous fund-raising dialog…:
CEO: “…give me money to
build prototype…”
Investor: “…show me paying
customer for your product…”
CEO: “…if I sold finished product
I wouldn’t need money…”
Investor: “…technology not
proven…I’ll pass…”
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

5. Raising money… in Athens
 Greek VCs were:
• Not doing
startups…
• Risk averse!
Didn’t invest > €1M
•
• Had no domain
expertise
• No entrepreneurs
• Had no global
network
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

6. Raising money… in Athens
 Investors believed in the mgmt team because
they didn’t understand the technology
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

7. Operating from Athens
 Hard work … 24/7
 Imagination, ambition, persistence,
patience
 A lot of traveling to meet with
customers in US and Asia!
 Customer support in different
timezones… in the middle of the night
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

8. Brief profile
 Helic founded May 2000 – team from NTUA
 H/Q in CA, sales US, JPN, DE
 2000: 5  2009: 45 employees
 Cutting-edge world-class technology
in EDA and IC design
 Aug 2000: 1st high-tech company in
Greece raising VC financing
 Dec 2003: VeloceRF™ 1st EDA product to market
 Profitable and cash-flow positive since 2004
 Fast penetration in global market: customers 15
out of 20 big semiconductor players
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

9. Our DNA
 Hard work and no talking
 Develop world-class technology to help major IC
suppliers get chips to production fast
 Value our people
 Ambition and vision to build global awareness for
quality, reliability and innovation
 Invest in world-class Greek-origin research: Greek
Universities
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

10. Helic sites
 R&D and sales offices
Salonica, GR
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

11. The semiconductor market
 Global R&D investments growth despite downturns
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

12. The EDA market
 Continuously growing despite downturns
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

13. Our EDA products
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

14. Helic technology thoroughly validated
BiCMOS CMOS
Silicon Foundry 0.35um 0.18um 0.18um 0.13um 90nm 65nm 40-
45nm
    
TSMC
      
IBM
 
Fujitsu Microelectronics
 
Toshiba
  
Freescale
 
STMicroelectronics
 
Jazz Semiconductor

Sony
 
Panasonic
 
UMC

AMS

OKI
 
Intel
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

15. Investments and grants
 Equity financing 2000-2008: $7Μ in 3 rounds
 Investors:
• Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems founder and
angel investor of Google
• Deutsche Bank AM
• Big Japanese strategic investor
• Big US strategic investor
• Alpha Finance
• Friends & Family, others
 Grants: 2007-2009: $5M
• Greek state, Corallia
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

16. Competitive advantage
 Experienced management team in global biz dev
and product development
 Healthy financials:
• Current assets > $5M
• No debt
• Cash-flow positive
 Adopted technology:
• > 40 corporate customers
• > 500 design-engineers using our products
 Smart money: Reference investors in semicondutor
industry
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.

17. Thank you for joining our event!
Copyright © 2000-2009, Helic, Inc.