Singapore-based semiconductor startup Nexstrom has raised $12 million in a seed funding round led by Xora Innovation, with participation from Foothill Ventures and SEEDS, an arm of SG Growth Capital.
The latest round brings Nexstrom’s total capital raised to $15 million, including $3 million in non-dilutive funding, according to a statement on Monday.
The proceeds will be used to commercialise Nexstrom’s wafer-scale two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor platform and advance the development of 12-inch, or 300-mm, single-crystal 2D wafers using production-ready manufacturing tools.
Nexstrom said it is also working with industry partners to validate the technology within existing semiconductor manufacturing processes. The company plans to use the fresh capital to further develop its platform, collaborate with semiconductor foundries, and expand its engineering and leadership teams.
Founded in 2024, Nexstrom develops wafer-scale 2D semiconductor materials targeting applications including artificial intelligence, data centres and high-performance computing.
The company is seeking to address some of the challenges associated with continued silicon scaling as chipmakers look for materials that can support smaller and more energy-efficient transistors.
“For years, the challenge has not been demonstrating the promise of 2D materials, but manufacturing them at the scale and quality advanced foundries require,” said Lance Li, co-founder and chief scientist of Nexstrom.
Li has worked on single-crystal molybdenum disulfide, or MoS₂, growth since 2012 and previously led corporate research at TSMC focused on post-silicon electronics, according to the statement.
Nexstrom was incubated through Xora Innovation’s venture-building programme, which focuses on translating scientific research into commercial applications. Xora Innovation is a deep-tech investment platform backed by Singapore state investor Temasek.
“The question is no longer whether 2D semiconductors matter. They are already on the technology roadmap of major semiconductor companies. The challenge is making them manufacturable,” said Philip Wong, a board adviser at Nexstrom and professor at Stanford University.
“The industry needs high-quality, uniform 2D materials on 300 mm substrates, and solving that materials bottleneck is exactly where Nexstrom is focused.”
Nexstrom’s board and advisers also include semiconductor industry executives and researchers Sundar Ramamurthy, Aaron Thean and John Langan.
