How Arm became the most prosperous tech company in Britain

Co-founder of London-based Amadeus Capital Partners Hermann Hauser joined a WhatsApp group in 2023 that was full of billionaire US investors including Michael Dell and Mark Andreesen.Hauser tells me, "When they invited me to join the group, one of the first things they did was lament the fact that Europe doesn't have any hundred-billion tech companies."“Well, keep an eye on Arm,” he said. The tip was sound. The chip designer's market value soared above $100 billion a few months after Arm's stunning Nasdaq IPO, making it the first British tech company to reach that milestone. Hauser, who had led the company's spinout from Cambridge-based Acorn Computers in the early 1990s after a modest investment from Apple, was proud of the moment.And the stock keeps up its impressive rise.

It is currently valued at about $150 billion, more than twice as much as it was at its 2023 IPO, and it even briefly surpassed the $200 billion milestone in July of last year. During a recent staff conference, Arm's Chief Architect Richard Grisenthwaite, the company's de facto CTO, stated, "I can definitely see us going way above our current valuation over the years because the demand is really there." He also insisted on walking on stage to the song "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive."Everyone will be using more and more computing in everything they do, and it's in the data centers." Our networked world will include artificial intelligence, which presents us with a plethora of potential. "The demand for computing is significantly exploding right now.Here, the possibilities are truly endless. According to Arm's most recent financial reports, Grisenthwaite's optimism is justified.

The company's turnover is expected to nearly double from just three years ago, reaching approximately $4 billion by the conclusion of its current fiscal year in April. Since then, Arm has gained over 2,000 employees, bringing its total workforce to almost 8,000. The majority of these employees still work in Cambridge, where the firm is now developing a new headquarters.