CIC invests in Cambridge GaN Devices $19m Series B round to tackle the $50B Global Power Semiconductor Market

Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), the venture capital investor focused on deeptech and life science businesses in the Cambridge ecosystem, has invested in Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) $19m Series B funding round.

The investment will support the company’s mass production of its GaN transistor family and its continued contribution to the global sustainability movement. CIC invested in the round alongside Parkwalk Advisors, BGF, IQ Capital, Foresight Williams Technology and Martlet Capital.

Dr Giorgia Longabardi, co-founder and CEO, said “CGD is poised to become one of the leaders in enabling a sustainable world. As we move to a net-zero carbon society with rapidly increasing levels of electrification, we need clean, renewable sources of electricity and more efficient conversion methods. GaN provides the optimum conversion solution, reducing power losses by more than 50% and increasing energy conversion efficiency to above 99%. To take just one application example, if all data centres were to adopt GaN, this would save 12.4TWh of electricity per year, or 9 million tons of CO2 – the equivalent of taking 1.9 million internal combustion engines vehicles off the road for a year*. Our ICeGaN™ GaN transistors – which are now in the hands of customers at scale – are amongst the most efficient devices of their type on the market. Our devices are also the easiest for designers to use.”

CGD has already made remarkable progress, developing new intellectual property and bringing to market its new ICeGaN™ Gallium Nitride transistor family which addresses a $50bn global power semiconductor market. The company is uniquely positioned to disrupt multiple industries such as consumer and industrial power supplies, lighting, data centres and automotive HEV/EV. CGD’s innovative and easy-to-use technology provides efficient, sustainable, and more cost-effective power solutions for electronic equipment.

As a result, CGD has gained significant global traction and attention at international conferences and in respected press. CGD is currently leading a $10m European-funded project developing GaN-based modules for low and high-power applications (GaNext); is participating in a UK supply chain initiative for PCB-embedded power systems with GaN devices (P3EP) and recently launched a project to develop highly reliable GaN power transistors and ICs to cut data centre emissions (ICeData). CGD is also focused on key partnerships with their customers focused at the datacom and automotive solutions. The company has completed its brand development, moved to new offices, and now employs over 40 staff worldwide, with more planned to support the up scaling.

Ian Lane, Partner at CIC, said “We are delighted to have backed Giorgia and her team in this latest round. The commercialisation of CGD’s technology comes at an important point in time, as we look for technology enabled solutions to lower power consumption across applications, as diverse as phone chargers and data centres. Cambridge (UK) is a globally important hub for semiconductor design and CGD is a great example of the innovation in the cluster.”