EnSilica designs custom chips for satellite, automotive, industrial and photonics customers. It makes no chips itself, and its sites are near Oxford, in the UK, India, Brazil and Hungary. In the year to May 2026 it moved from break-even to a £5.9m EBITDA profit on £27.8m of revenue, after a year in which revenue fell by a quarter and guidance was cut sharply. Most of its value still sits in chip programmes that have not yet reached volume production.
A chip designer that wants to be a chip supplier
EnSilica is a fabless chipmaker. It designs application-specific chips (ASICs) and has outside foundries manufacture them. Customers pay upfront engineering fees (NRE, non-recurring engineering). Where it makes sense, EnSilica co-invests in the design in return for supply or royalty revenue once the chip is in production. Chips typically stay in a customer's product for seven to ten years, and longer in cars and factories.
It has four target markets: space and satellite communications, automotive, industrial and photonics. It also sells security technology, including post-quantum cryptography (encryption designed to resist future quantum computers). Named customers include Siemens, Oriole Networks (photonic networking), SIAE Microelettronica (telecoms equipment), AST SpaceMobile (satellite payload chips), a German tier-one car supplier and a European satellite operator. More than 10 million of its automotive chips have shipped.
Revenue comes from three sources: chip supply, NRE and consultancy. In the first half of FY26, NRE was £5.8m, supply £3.9m and consultancy £3.0m. Supply carries the higher margin, which is why the company tracks it closely. Five chips are now in supply and fourteen are in design. 5 Oct 2026 3 Feb 2026 4 Nov 2025
Growth on contract wins, funded by small raises
In FY23, its first full year as a public company, revenue rose to £20.5m. FY24 revenue rose to £25.3m. Through 2023 and 2024 EnSilica announced a stream of design-and-supply contracts. Siemens, SIAE, an industrial timing chip and an edge AI chip each carried a stated lifetime value of $30m to $50m or more.
The company also raised small amounts of equity, mostly at 40p to 50p a share: £1.56m in December 2023, £1.1m in February 2024 and £5.2m in May 2024. The Board said further external financing might be needed if customer receipts were delayed. In May 2024 it said it was confident of FY25 revenue above £30m and EBITDA above £5m. 10 Oct 2023 5 Nov 2024 14 Dec 2023 27 Feb 2024 30 May 2024 14 May 2024
FY25: the forecast missed by a wide margin
FY25 revenue came in at £18.2m, and EBITDA was £nil. In April 2025 the company had already cut its FY25 revenue guidance to £19-20m, citing delays at two customers, and it has not said why they were delayed. It also booked a £1.8m credit-loss allowance on customers. An October 2025 update tied £1.6m of that to SIAE, whose project was expected to resume in 2026. Part of the EBITDA figure moved after R&D tax credits were reclassified into other income.
Under the surface, chip supply revenue doubled to £5.7m and six new design and supply agreements were signed. The shares fell from the low 40s in early 2025 to 34p in April, and traded around 37p to 50p until early 2026. 4 Nov 2025 7 Apr 2025 16 Oct 2025
FY26: profit, cash and two fundraisings
FY26 revenue rose 53% to £27.8m and EBITDA reached £5.9m. EBITDA includes R&D tax credit income, which was higher than the company had estimated. Net operating cash flow was £6.2m. Revenue was just under the £28-30m range the company last confirmed in March 2026, and EBITDA was above its £3.5-4.5m range. Supply revenue grew only 16% to £6.7m, so most of the growth came from engineering and consultancy work.
In March 2026 EnSilica raised £10m at 47p. A new holder, Esterhuyzen, took about 13.6% of the company. After the FY26 trading update the shares reached 113p in May. In July 2026 the company raised £14.9m at 91p, to fund satellite chips, photonics engineering and working capital. The latest close, on 13 October 2026, was 81.2p. 5 Oct 2026 23 Jun 2026 13 Mar 2026 18 Mar 2026 7 Apr 2026 9 Jul 2026 10 Mar 2026
Lumpy design fees, slow-building supply
The record shows one pattern. Design fees arrive in large, uneven amounts tied to customer milestones, so a delay at one or two customers can push revenue far off forecast, as in FY25. Supply revenue is steadier, but it builds slowly because chips take years to move from design into production. Management has said it expects growing supply revenue to cushion the swings in NRE.
Cash and profit were also helped by milestone payments from customers and by government R&D tax credits. Both are outside the chip-supply model the company is trying to build. 27 Nov 2025 7 Apr 2025 3 Feb 2026 5 Oct 2026
“our growing supply revenues to provide a natural buffer against the inherent lumpiness of the NRE revenues” 27 Nov 2025
Same leaders, a push into satellites
Mark Hodgkins is Executive Chair and Ian Lankshear is CEO. Kristoff Rademan joined as CFO in May 2024. Hodgkins and one non-executive director bought small amounts of stock in November 2024. Management's response to FY25 was to keep adding design-and-supply contracts. It also opened design centres in Budapest, Brazil and Cambridge, and in September 2026 announced a Milan centre for space and communications chips. The team grew to 204 people.
Management has moved several targets. In April 2025 it aimed for positive cash generation at the end of FY26. By October 2025 that had become 'in due course'. In February 2026 it became positive monthly operational cash by the end of calendar 2026. In June 2026 it became positive monthly operational cash after intangible-asset investment by the end of FY27. 13 May 2024 14 Nov 2024 12 Aug 2025 8 Sep 2026 7 Apr 2025 16 Oct 2025 3 Feb 2026 23 Jun 2026
Profitable, better funded, still investing
At 31 May 2026 cash was £7.6m, up from £2.0m a year earlier, before the £14.9m raise in July. Lifetime supply visibility, meaning expected supply revenue under customer forecasts, is $375m, up from $250m. The sales pipeline is over $600m.
Recent wins include a $75m, seven-year automotive contract, with about $4m of revenue expected in FY27. Two development contracts with a European satellite operator carry $6.8m of initial NRE and potential supply of over $50m from 2030. An edge AI chip completed tape-out (the hand-off of the finished design to manufacture), releasing $5m of NRE and tape-out fees across FY26 and FY27. 5 Oct 2026 1 Jun 2026 23 Apr 2026 11 Jun 2026
What has to happen next
For the year to 31 May 2027 the company guides to revenue of £32-34m and EBITDA of £5.5-6.5m, with more than 80% of revenue already visible. It wants to add four to five new chip programmes a year and to convert the fourteen in design into supply. Siemens volume production is due to ramp from January 2027, and the edge AI chip is due in volume during calendar 2027. Satellite terminal supply is expected to grow from 2029.
The long-term target is £100m of annual revenue and EBITDA margins towards 30%. In November 2024 the company called £100m a medium-term aim. In November 2025 it moved it to 6-10 years, with £60m in 3-5 years. In October 2026 it again called £100m a medium-term target. The open questions are whether the pipeline converts, whether supply revenue grows faster than the 16% of FY26, and whether cash turns positive after investment in chip designs as now guided. 5 Oct 2026 23 Jun 2026 5 Feb 2026 11 Jun 2026 22 Jul 2026 5 Nov 2024 4 Nov 2025
Written by AI from EnSilica's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources