Semiconductor Startups to Watch
Semiconductors are at the core of AI, electrification, communications and digital infrastructure. Because chips sit inside EVs, grid equipment and data centers, efficiency gains at the chip level translate directly into lower energy demand, which is why semiconductors are part of Net Zero Insights’ Climate Tech coverage.
This piece is a companion to Semiconductors: The Innovations Making Chips More Efficient, which looks at the technologies and approaches driving innovation across the semiconductor industry.
Five semiconductor startups to watch
We picked five companies that each tackle a different part of the semiconductor value chain, from low-power chip design and advanced materials to photonics, optical interconnects and wafer technologies. Together they range from a 2025 research spinout to a company that has raised over $400M.
AI workloads are putting growing pressure on the power needed to run computing infrastructure. Velaura AI is tackling this at the chip-design level with its Titan Core
technology. Its proprietary design technology targets arithmetic operations in AI accelerators and is designed to reduce the power needed for these operations by around 2–4×, according to the company.
The technology is designed for ultra-low-power compute and can be integrated into advanced semiconductor designs. Velaura says its technology has already been used across tens of millions of ASICs.
Silicon carbide and gallium nitride are already established wide-bandgap semiconductor materials. Startups are now exploring materials that could push performance further. NextGO Epi is developing beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga₂O₃) epitaxy, an ultrawide-bandgap semiconductor material for high-power electronics.
The company produces gallium oxide epitaxial wafers using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE), targeting applications where high voltage and power efficiency are important. NextGO Epi was spun out of the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth in Germany in 2025.
As more data moves between processors, networks and devices, reducing the power needed for that data transfer is becoming increasingly important. NLM Photonics develops organic electro-optic materials and photonic technologies designed to enable high-bandwidth, low-power data transmission.
Its technology combines engineered organic materials, specialized processes and chip design with silicon photonics and other photonic integrated circuit platforms. The company says its technology can deliver up to 50% power savings and up to 4× higher bandwidth in certain applications.
Making computing more efficient is only part of the challenge. Moving data between chips and across data center infrastructure also consumes energy. Solinide Photonics is developing silicon-nitride photonic chips based on microcomb technology for optical interconnects.
Its approach uses a single integrated optical source to generate multiple wavelengths of light, replacing multiple discrete lasers in co-packaged optics applications. This can reduce the power, cost and footprint of optical connections used in AI and data center infrastructure.
Silicon carbide is already widely used in power electronics, but there is still room to improve how the material is produced and integrated into advanced semiconductor devices. TekSiC is developing SiC crystal growth and semi-insulating SiC wafers for high-performance semiconductor applications.
The company has also demonstrated GaN epitaxy on its semi-insulating SiC wafers, an important step toward using the material for RF and power devices. Its technology is aimed at applications including communications, radar and other high-frequency electronics.
More semiconductor startups to explore
These five startups represent just a small part of the semiconductor landscape tracked by Net Zero Insights. From ultra-low-power chip design and new semiconductor materials to photonics, optical interconnects and advanced wafer technologies, innovation is happening across multiple parts of the semiconductor value chain.
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