Bloomberg broke the news about Raspberry Pi leadership's lofty ambitions earlier this week—the news outlet reported on the UK-based "personal computer maker" appointing "bankers at Peel Hunt and Jefferies to prepare a London initial public offering (IPO)." In their opinion: "a listing that would be a win for the UK capital after an exodus of companies to the US." The Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer launched last autumn, and proved to be a hit with hardware enthusiasts thanks to improved silicon delivering significant CPU and GPU uplifts (over Pi 4), and an in-house controller chip granting a fancier interface feature set. The Raspberry Pi Limited company is enjoying its many success stories, including an estimated valuation of ~$560 million and strategic investments courtesy of long-term partner, ARM Ltd.

Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd., responded to a Tom's Hardware query regarding the Bloomberg news piece. He confirmed that banking firm "Peel Hunt and Jefferies" is involved in the preparation of an upcoming IPO, but nothing has been set in concrete. They expect to proceed: "when the market is ready. Right now there is no target valuation or a firm date." Upton discussed his firm's recent motivations: "We believe that London is the natural listing location for a company like Raspberry Pi, and that it wouldn't be an impediment to attracting US (or other international) investment, provided we're prepared to do the work to educate foreign investors." The listing is not expected to affect normal day-to-day operations, although he does not rule out the potential for growth: "If we do IPO at some point, I don't anticipate any changes to what Raspberry Pi Ltd does. Regardless, we're going to keep doing good engineering, designing the sorts of products we'd like to buy ourselves, and selling them to people (and companies) like us. Of course the Foundation would be able to use any money raised to do what it does at an even larger scale, which would be a great outcome."

According to the latest report from Reuters, Arm Ltd has filled the documents for its initial public offering (IPO) efforts in hopes of getting publically traded later this year. The stock exchange of choice is Nasdaq, where Softbank plans to list Arm's shares publicly. Seeking to raise anywhere between 8-10 billion US Dollars, the company's market capitalization has yet to be determined. If any factor is to go by, NVIDIA tried to acquire Arm Ltd for 40 billion US Dollars, which ultimately failed due to regulators rejecting the deal.

As a reminder, Arm is changing its licensing model to boost royalties, which we reported about here. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays, and Mizuho Financial Group guide the IPO efforts.

The Financial Times this weekend has published details about an interesting development project that is currently in-the-works at British semiconductor specialist firm Arm Ltd. The article states that several executives in the industry have divulged (anonymously) that Arm's engineering team is designing a proprietary chip - these insider sources opine that this new creation could be one of the company's most advanced undertakings. The SoftBank-owned chipmaker is having a bumper year in terms of financial success and has invested in its future - it is speculated that their own semiconductor design will be showcased as a prototype product to potential new clients - with the main goal being to drum up more business and growth. Parent group SoftBank is likely pushing for maximum profit margins as it prepares Arm for an initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Arm's modus operandi involves partnering up with other chip manufacturers in order to license out its semiconductor intellectual properties. In turn these partners are expected to deal with the overall design and manufacturing processes of chips (plus sales of). Arm has teamed up with foundries TSMC and Samsung in the past to create prototypes for software testing purposes, but not much has been heard about those proofing projects in the following years. In an unusual turn (from certain industry perspectives) from its traditional working methodologies, it seems that Arm is embracing a different approach by producing its own compelling designs, with the hope of demonstrating greater potential to customers. FT's sources have provided evidence that Arm has expanded its operations and that a newly formed "solutions engineering" team is focused on prototyping new silicon for usage in mobile hardware and related devices.