There are more business angels in the hi-tech heaven of Cambridge tonight after ARM Holdings shareholders sanctioned the $31 billion sale to Japanese bidder SoftBank.

ARM employees share an estimated £400 million windfall following ratification of the takeover while CEO Simon Segars and co-founder and CTO MIke Muller together haul in some £54.4m.

Legal, financial and PR advisers to ARM alone are earning £65m from the acquisition process, SoftBank’s parallel advisers slightly less than that.

Seasoned tech observers believe the cash bonanza will trigger a fresh spurt of Cambridge startups with ARM directors and engineers striking out with new ventures.

But the acquisition immediately saw ARM delisted from the London Stock Exchange and, as a result, left the FTSE 100 index some £24bn poorer.

Right to the death, UK politicians and entrepreneurs continued to brand the deal a sell-out for Britain and the technology sector despite SoftBank’s pledge to grow ARM globally from a significantly enhanced Cambridge base.

The bid by SoftBank was spawned by the Brexit vote which left sterling crippled; the offer of 1,700p a share represents almost 50 times ARM’s forecast earnings for the current year.

Pretty much from the outset, ARM’s board had no hesitation in recommending the offer to shareholders. It was reassured that SoftBank pledged to at least double the number of employees employed by ARM in the UK over the next five years under the existing management team on the back of heavy investment.

SoftBank today offered legal guarantees regarding its commitment to growing ARM from Cambridge. It sees ARM’s superchip architecture prowess as the key to unlocking the treasure trove that is the Internet of Things.

Cynical observers said that SoftBank had merely pledged to execute a growth plan that ARM had already set in motion regarding doubling UK headcount from a massively expanded Cambridge mother ship.

They also noted that SoftBank’s pledge only covered the certainty of patronage over the next five years – beyond which no-one knows whether ARM will still be headquartered locally or its fortunes steered from Cambridge?

While beneficiaries of the deal are wading in cash, realists are right to argue that, in many aspects, the acquisition remains a step into the unknown.