On 14 April 2011, Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) and selling shareholders placed 7,700,000 American Depositary Shares (ADS) at a price of $10.00 per ADS, implying a market capitalization of $365 million.

Sequans became a Kennet portfolio company in July 2006 when we led a €17 million financing of the business. The company has since become a global leader in the design and development of 4G chipsets. Sequans is the first French company to list on NYSE since 2002.

Based in Paris, Sequans is a leading fabless designer, developer and supplier of 4G semiconductor solutions for wireless broadband applications. Its products incorporate baseband processor and RF transceiver ICs along with proprietary signal processing techniques, algorithms and software stacks to deliver high throughput, low latency, strong signal reach, low power consumption and high reliability in a small form factor and at a low cost. Sequans shipped more than 4.6 million units during 2010, compared to more than 0.9 million units during 2009.

Since Kennet has been a shareholder, the company grew from $6 million revenues in 2006 to over $68 million revenues in 2010.

Sequans is a terrific example of the kind of high-growth technology business that is at the core of Kennet's investment strategy.