Sowmyan Rajagopalan

Founder and CEO

Sowmyan founded Thalia in 2011. He is responsible for business strategy and leads the company’s development of disruptive EDA solutions, algorithms and methodologies targeting analog migration, design variants and “IP on-demand”. He has 18+ years of experience in the design and development of analog IP, IP strategy, analog EDA solutions and design methodologies. He has been awarded multiple patents in EDA design and applications.

In his previous role at Micrel, he championed the development of analog power management integrated circuit (PMIC) IP libraries, and developed methodologies to improve the efficiency of the design process. He has developed several EDA solutions and has published a number of papers on EDA methodologies.

Before founding Thalia, Sowmyan ran a successful Design solutions company based out of the UK and India.

Sowmyan holds an MS in Electrical Engineering specializing in Digital VLSI Design, and a BE in Electronics Engineering.

Tim O’Connell

CFO

Tim is a chartered accountant who, for 20 years, has held senior executive roles in the computer games industry, covering facets including publishing, development and distribution. Within this range of disciplines, he has helped to grow companies, most notably as FD for a company, overseeing its growth from 10 to 300 employees, stock market floatation and ultimate sale.

He has been responsible for opening a number of international office and joint ventures and assisted in the acquisition and sale of companies and the closure of non-performing ones, gaining considerable experience with both commercial and corporate legal contracts, including in the realm of IP.

Since setting up a consultancy in 2003, he has helped to mentor and develop business and strategic plans for start up and early growth companies and supported the efforts to raise finance through equity, debt and grants and by working with angels and VC firms.

Dr Christopher Yates

VP Software Engineering

Chris has over 20 years of experience of research, statistical analysis, software development and mathematical optimization techniques. From 1993 to 2003 he was a Research Fellow at The University of Reading where he also undertook a PhD in Mathematical Science to accompany his BSc in Mathematics and Statistics from Bath University, and MSc in applied statistics from Sheffield Hallam University.

Whilst at Reading Chris developed an international reputation for innovation in developing new techniques for mathematical modeling and providing solutions to unsolved problems. In 1997 he won the prestigious Goodeve Medal for research using mathematical optimization from the Operations Research Society.

He has helped develop software for many purposes, including a nationally published index of UK land valuations, a 3D mapping tool for geologists and a management revenue system for the YHA.

Jean-Francois Lambert

Director of Sales Europe

With almost 30 years in the semiconductor, EDA, design services and IP industries, Jean-Francois’ career encompasses IDM, fabless and start-up companies. He has extensive experience in sales, business development and channel management, and in building long-term partnerships and ecosystem support.

Prior to joining Thalia, Jean-Francois served within Cadence Design Systems’ design IP and VIP business; at Chipidea and later Synopsys, developing the companies’ business in analog, mixed signal and interface IP; at ETesiAN Semiconductor, representing IP firms such as Kilopass, Elliptic and Cosmic Circuits; and at MIPS Technologies.

He holds MS qualifications in VLSI & Microcomputing, and Electronic & Computer Science, and a BE in Electronics & Computing.

Awadh Pandey

RFIC Design Director

Awadh heads up Thalia’s analog and RFIC design team, and is responsible for technical implementation and delivery of customer engagements.

Awadh brings more than 20 years of experience in analog and RFIC design and design management. Before joining Thalia in 2016, he held technical positions at Intel, Maxim and NXP. Awadh has particular expertise in designing cellular transceivers for mobile handsets and has specialist knowledge in products developed for wireless transceivers and fiber optic communications, including industry-leading fiber-to-the-home transceivers, 10Gbps transceivers and signal integrity ICs.

Awadh is a Chartered Engineer, a Member of the IET (UK) and holds two US Patents. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from IIT Delhi.

Ilya Temnikov

Director of EDA Engineering

Ilya has worked in the semiconductor industry for over 17 years, initially working as a microchip testing engineer at Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis of Russian Academy of Sciences, and then as a senior PDK engineer at various large companies. He joined Thalia in 2020, and manages the EDA and CAD department, developing Thalia IP reuse software, supporting engineers with CAD and engineering tasks automation, implementation of customer engagements (technology and design analysis and circuit migration) and standardizing and maintaining Thalia workflows.

Subhash Sachan

Director of Operations at Thalia India

With more than 20 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry and a proven track record in steering project, site and operations management, Subhash is a strategic planner and problem solver.

He has successfully built and managed multiple teams of more than 50 designers, providing technical leadership to team members in running projects on time and ensuring the timely release of multiple products including IP, IO and PHY design projects including spec finalization, design / layout review, customer review, final delivery and post Fabrication characterization.

Prior to joining Thalia, Subhash served in Analinear Tech, eSilicon, BitMicro, QualCore and SCL. He holds a Masters degree in Micro Electronics and a BTech in Electronics Engineering. Subhash has hands-on experience in all aspects of VLSI design, System-On-a-Chip (SoC) design, ASIC and Analog design.

Rodger Sykes

Executive Chairman

Rodger has a global background in high technology in both small and large companies.

From 2006 to 2010 he was President and CEO of MMIC Solutions, a venture funded company focused on commercializing the millimeter-wave frequency bands. He was a founder and CEO at SiConnect, a powerline networking company, and before that President and CEO at Picochip, a cellular femtocell company. From 1990 to 2002 he lived in the USA, holding senior management positions with Texas Instruments, Philips Semiconductors and latterly with LogicVision, a design automation software company which completed a successful $47M IPO in 2000.

Rodger has a PhD in Device Physics and a BSc in Electronics & Applied Physics from the University of Durham (UK).

George Siddorn

Board Director

George is an Investment Analyst within the technology investment team at Deepbridge, working with existing and prospective investee companies in the Technology Growth EIS and Innovation SEIS funds. Prior to joining Deepbridge, George gained experience working as an investment researcher for the AgriTech sector at Toscafund and a researcher in Parliament. Having recently graduated with a BSc in Economics with Mathematics and passed the CFA Levels 1 and 2, he is currently working towards the final CFA designation.

Everard Mascarenhas

Board Director

Dr Everard Mascarenhas has a PhD in Electronic Engineering and worked as analogue chip designer. He is a highly experienced early stage technology company CEO with a successful track record of commercialising ICT technologies. He previously spent 10 years as an Investment Director for a number of VCs and is the Development Bank of Wales’ Investment Director for Thalia.

Dr Carl L. Griffith

Board Observer

Dr Carl Griffiths is the Technology Seed Fund Manager at the Development Bank of Wales. He holds a PhD in Physics from Cardiff University and is the former CEO and founder of Sheffield University spin out Seren Photonics Ltd.

Prior to founding Seren, Carl worked as the Principal Research Engineer for BICC Cables Ltd and in 2000 founded ORS Ltd, a manufacturer of optical probes for the semiconductor industries. He was the Managing Director for ORS for eight years, running the business and raising equity funding before becoming Investment Manager at VC firm Fusion IP plc.

Carl now focuses on investing in IP rich Welsh technology ventures with the potential to be high growth companies. Carl has invested in several different technology sectors including engineering, software, materials and life sciences. With new and follow-on investment experience, Carl aims to develop lasting successful relationships with the businesses he invests in and the co-investors he invests alongside.

Carl has worked with several commercial due diligence providers and co-investors and is adept at helping businesses shape and develop their ideas.

Ashwin Kumaraswamy

Board Observer

Ashwin has more than ten years VC experience. He is responsible for a number of significant technology investments as part of the Mercia Asset Management Plc. Ashwin has focussed his investment activity on Hard-tech and Deeptech companies and is on the board of number of UK co’s. Ashwin has previously worked at IP Group plc, commercialising intellectual property from UK universities, and at ITI Scotland, analysing technology markets. He started his career as a technology entrepreneur in Semiconductor industry

Kavé Kianush

Advisory Board Member

Kavé Kianush studied electronics at the University of London, UK. He joined Philips Research Labs in Redhill, UK in 1982, where he worked on advanced modulation techniques and efficient transmitter architectures. In 1987, he moved to Philips Research Labs in Eindhoven, Netherlands, where he worked on novel receiver architectures.

From 1990 till the year 2000, he was working at Philips Semiconductors System Labs, where he was the Section Manager of the Radio Group. In 2000, Kavé left Philips to join Catena, an IC design-house based in Delft, Netherlands, where he was a shareholder, CTO and Vice president.

Over the following 12 years Kavé transformed the company’s business strategy by diversifying competencies and developing complete RF system IPs. Catena was acquired by NXP semiconductor in 2012 but remained a separate entity until 2020. Kavé stayed on as CTO and VP until July 2020, when NXP decided to integrate Catena. Since then he has been working as independent consultant and is advisory board member of several SME and startup semiconductor companies. Kavé has filed several patents and published technical papers in the fields of RF and wireless technologies.

Guillaume d’Eyssautier

Advisory Board Member

Guillaume’s career has spanned over the past 40 years in the semiconductor industry, including management positions in both Europe and the USA. Guillaume is on the board and investor in several start-up companies in the micro-electronics and software domain, and most recently was CEO of DelfMEMS.

Prior to DelfMEMS he was CEO of ADD semiconductor which he sold to Atmel in October 2011. Prior to ADD he was CEO of picoChip, sold to Mindspeed. Prior to that, he served as Senior VP-GM at Cadence Design Systems, VP-GM EMEA for IBM Technology Group (Microelectronics and Storage) and held executive and management positions at Rockwell Semiconductor, GEC-Plessey Semiconductor, Matra Harris Semiconductors and Philips Semiconductors. He holds an MSc in Material Science and an MBA from INSEAD.