The SiRF Difference

Vision + Patience = A player for the long term.

Unlike the vast majority of VC-funded startups in Silicon Valley, SiRF enjoyed the benefits of patient investors from the start. Founder Kanwar Chadha, with years of experience at Intel and S3, specifically sought out backers – Valley angels and corporate sponsors mostly – who could ride out the early, lean years of GPS, from about 1995-2000. During this time, SiRF focused on evangelizing the location awareness vision and building out functionality that would be important to consumers (even though few consumer markets yet existed). For example, although in this time frame most professional GPS users, such as land surveyors, could count on clear access to the sky to capture the GPS signal, SiRF knew that consumers would need to be able to get their signal in obstructed environments such as under tall buildings. And while professionals could wait a few minutes for their signal, consumers never would. Now, the company enjoys a significant head start in GPS technologies specifically designed for the demanding consumer market.