Also, for those looking for ideas on what GPTs to build, here are 4 GPTs that don't exist that someone should build:
- Quota Sales Calculator: design the right incentives
- Sales Ramp-up: get your sales team up to speed, faster
- Email Subject-line GPT: optimize open rates based on what works
- Negotiation GPT: trained on actual sales negotiation scripts / cases
🌊 Y Combinator Sales Tech
Here are 10 interesting sales-tech picks from recent Y Combinator batches:
Octolane AI (YC W24): hands-free AI CRM, uses LLMs to figure out who is visiting a website and starts an email conversation + scheduling a sales calls.
Twenty: open-source CRM. A modern alternative to Salesforce.
Topo.io (YC W24): enables sales teams to move forward with buyers by centralising stakeholders, resources, and deals—all in one place.
Unhaze: finds and prioritises the accounts you are most likely to convert.
Hyperbound: simulated role-play platform that turns ICP descriptions into interactive AI agents.
AISDR: uses AI to automatically write and send sales emails.
Stay tuned for next month as we’ll be sharing another Sales AI tooling list. This time around lead generation, with a few promising startups (like Genesy.ai) in the space.
🌊 Spanish Semiconductors
My colleague José, Partner at JME.vc, takes us down the Spanish Semiconductor Market rabbit hole. Let’s go:
Introduction
As part of our work at JME ventures in identifying the most promising Spanish talent in frontiertechnologies, we have done a deep dive on the microelectronics and semiconductor sector in our country.
As we will see, Spain has clearly not been in the frontline of this sector.
However, we have identified some solid emerging talent that combined with expected levels of private and public investment makes us optimistic.
As it has happened many times in history, to companies and countries, the status quo can be changed in some generations if the right incentives are set.
Brief history of the industry
5 big themes that have shaped today's arena - in a nutshell:
1/ The discovery
Although many discoveries and innovations contributed to the creation of the transistor in 1947, it was this event what some considered to be the inception of the industry. We must thank Bell Labs and its employees John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley for this.
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley
Additionally, it was not until the development of the Integrated Circuit that the technology could be applied to “mass production”. ICs revolutionised electronics by packing multiple transistors and other components onto a single chip of silicon, making complex electronic devices and computers possible.
We should thank Jack Kilby, working for Texas Instruments, and Robert Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, that independently developed the (IC) in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
2/ The war
It is impossible to decouple the development of the industry from the war. The II WW, the Cold War and the Vietnam War made the industry progress at really fast rates.
One of the main use cases of the microchips during the early days was the guiding of the missiles. As Chris Miller says in its book CHIP WAR, “the first big order for Noyce´s chips came from NASA”.
3/ Tech improvements
Since the creation of the transistor and the IC, many discoveries have been achieved that have made Moore´s Law possible. Among them we could mention Lithography and EUV Lithography (at some point we will do a deep dive into ASML – based in Europe it is the only company in the world that provides the equipment for EUVL - owning 100% of the market).
4/ Globalization
Fairchild was among the first, if not the first, to move its assembly lines to Asia. This happened at the beginning of the 60´s and it was followed by almost everyone in the industry. Countries like, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore or South Korea where the chosen countries.
The main reason? Much cheaper labour costs.
Additionally the creation of TSMC in 1987 by Morris Chang, one of the top executives at TI (Texas Instrument) in the 80´s, transformed the value chain of the industry. His idea of becoming the manufacturing facility for “fabless companies”, although not obvious at the moment (as he mentioned on this video), fall out to be a good decision.
5/ Modern history and geopolitics
After the obvious success of the industry, a lot of private and public investment was done. This has led to the rising of many startups and companies. We are talking about the likes of AMD (US), ARM (UK), GF (US), Nvidia (US), Samsung (South Korea), Intel (US), TSMC (Taiwan), SK Nyix (South Korea), Micron (US), Qualcomm (US), Broadcom (US), Toshiba (Japan) or Western Digital (US). Additionally, a lot of consolidation (M&A) has happened that led to a period of high valuations.
Furthermore, geopolitics has become a pivotal factor in shaping the industry's future. Current discussions and strategies are intensely focused on the influence and roles that nations and corporations will wield in shaping upcoming generations of the industry.
Sadly, Europe has historically fallen behind.
The European Chips Act is trying to revert the situation.
Spain
The contribution of Spain to this industry has been irrelevant. Sad, but it is the reality.
We could highlight the following. Some relevant names:
Ramon Verea: in 1878 he patented the first mechanic calculator. Verea's machine could directly multiply two numbers together without relying on repeated addition. He was a significant contributor to the early history of computing.
Leonardo Torres Quevedo: Among others he invented the Telekino, in 1903, which was a device for remote control of vessels and other vehicles. This can be considered an early contribution to the field of wireless remote control and robotics. Additionally, he invented the Automaton Chess Player “El Ajedrecista”, in 1912, one of the first autonomous machines capable of playing chess against a human opponent and considered the first “videogame” in history.
Jose Garcia Santesmases: he built the first Spanish analog electric calculator and created in 1973 one of the first PCs made in Spain. He also worked with Howard H. Aiken during his time at Harvard. He has a small museum on the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Factor-P: this was the first Spanish PC built in 1967 by the company Telesincro and designed by Jordi Vidal and Joan Majó. In 1985 the French company Bull bought 40% of the company and then sold it to Ingenico in 1990.
We have had 2 foundries in our country
Tres cantos microprocessor facility built in 1987: This was an AT&T and government project. It also helped the development of the “Parque Tecnologico” of Tres cantos. At the peak it had c 1000 workers. It was closed in 2001. The predominance of cost-efficient manufacturing in Asia was a primary factor driving the shutdown.
Piher “fábrica”: reaching 1.200 workers it used to make resistors and capacitors (among other electronic devices), but it closed in 1989 amid the company financial issues.
There are several private and/or public initiatives that are moving forward the sector in our country:
ICFO: Instituto de Ciencias Fotónicas. It has some very interesting spin-offs.
Barcelona Super Computing Center (BSC). Manages one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe and it also has impressive spin-offs.
CSIC/CNM - Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica
IUMA-Instituto Universitario de Microelectrónica Aplicada in the Canary Islands.
CTNV-Centro Tecnológico de Nanofotónica de Valencia
AESEMI: recently created it is The Spanish Semiconductor Industry Association
According to the AESEMI, there are approximately 270 semiconductor related companies/organizations operating in Spain. Out of which, per our research, we have identified some 40 private companies that could fall into the investment criteria of venture capital (scalability, growth, timings, etc.).
Mainly all the Spanish companies fall into the design bucket of the semiconductor value chain. We do not have any “proper” foundry, which is dominated by Taiwan, South Korea, the US or China. Said this, there is 1 main independent foundry initiative (Galicia Sparc) that is currently in the development phase.
As for, historical M&A activity we have seen some modest transactions. We have selected the following. Hopefully next time we revisit this article the list will be much larger:
Finally, we have some strong international companies with offices in Spain (Max Linear, Analog Devices, Esperanto, Marvell Technology, ams Osram, etc..) and others that are exploring expanding in our country:
Broadcom is planning to build a semiconductor facility in Spain Link
According to the press Cisco is also considering opening a design facility. Link
Apparently, Intel is also considering some kind of investment in our country but nothing tangible has been announced yet. Link
The IMEC has just announced (news from the 30th of Jan 2024) they will have an R&D facility in Málaga. Link
All in all, the Spanish microelectronics and semiconductor industry is clearly lagging other countries but thanks to the PERTE CHIP we have an opportunity to close the gap.
PERTE CHIP
This initiative falls under the CHIPS ACT, the European effort to gain technology sovereignty.
At the moment, according to AEMIC, Europe represents c10% of the global microelectronics production. The objective is to get to 20% by 2030 (not credible given the timings of this industry).
In this light, the objective of the Spanish PERTE CHIP is to invest (in various forms and shapes) €12bn in the period 2024-27 to boost the Spanish microelectronics and semiconductor ecosystem.
Our opinion is that this initiative, although late, is the first step towards the creation of more Spanish companies in this sector. It remains to be seen how this will unfold.
At least, we have witnessed a promising start from the government by naming Jaime Martorell as Chief of the PERTE, a person that on paper seems perfect for the purpose. He has a long-lasting experience in the industry and in leading private companies - among other experiences, he co-founded the semiconductor company Logic Devices, he worked for Fairchild in Mountain View and has been CEO at Amper. Hopefully he will have enough freedom to operate as it should.
Spanish market map
We show below the most relevant early-stage companies that we have identified. These are companies either founded in Spain or with at least one Spanish founder. Happy to receive feedback and add other companies that we are missing.
These companies are working in several fronts such as:
Photonic Devices: investigating on how to build a processor based on photons.
Advanced packaging: trying to provide innovative packaging solutions to increase performance and lower power consumption.
New Materials: like Silicon Carbide-SiC and Gallium Nitride (GaN) - important to the EV and space industry.
Novel architectures: specially for AI and IoT.
Interesting reads/podcasts/videos
Book: Chip War by Chris Miller
Book: The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner
Book: Microelectrónica, La historia de la mayor revolución silenciosa del sigo XX, by Ignacio Martíl Link
Book: Historia de la industria en España, Emilio de Diego. Link
Podcast: Acquired.FM. NVIDIA and TSMC episodes Link
