The new facility in Reading, England will house four employees and should be open for business on April 1 after renovations are completed, said GaN CEO Girvan Patterson.
Mr. Patterson says the company’s highly efficient semiconductors, which are primarily targeted at the clean-tech industry, are a good fit for the new location.
“We’re finding there’s a great emphasis in the U.K. on power engineering,” he said. “They’ve realized how important it is towards the goal of energy efficiency and savings. Having a presence there reinforces our commitment to that market.”
The expansion will allow the company to access key industries such as manufacturing and automotive, where the need for clean technology power conversion applications continue to grow.
In addition to sales offices, the new location will include technical support and seminar facilities.
A new office isn’t the only expansion GaN has seen recently. In the last 18 months, the company’s local presence has grown from three to 16 and will continue to rise, Mr. Patterson said.
Although the company just celebrated its fifth birthday, GaN’s real growth began in 2011 when it secured its first round of venture capital funding, and again last year when it closed a second funding round. That’s when expansion plans began to come to fruition, Mr. Patterson said.
With headquarters in Ottawa and another branch in Michigan, the next location following the U.K. expansion could be in Germany, according to Mr. Patterson, but no imminent plans exist.
GaN’s semiconductors use gallium nitride to convert 99 per cent of the energy they receive, making them more efficient than those made with silicon.
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