Nanotechnology company Chiral has announced a $3.8m funding round to support the way nanomaterials are integrated into devices. Its expertise in nanotechnology, automation, and high-precision robotics will be pivotal in the industry’s move beyond silicon to the next generation of electronics.
The pre-seed funding round was co-led by Founderful (formerly Wingman Ventures) and HCVC and includes grants from ETH Zurich and Venture Kick.
While the impact and use of nanomaterials across a range of electronics has been recognised, existing production methods, mostly based on chemistry, are not controllable, which has tended to prevent the commercialisation of these devices.
Chiral has built high-speed, automated, robotic machines that integrate nanomaterials into devices and can robotically place micrometre-sized (or even nanometre-sized) materials on small chips. Repeating these motions in a fast and automated manner requires a very high level of engineering, which ensures the precision and control that conventional chemistry-based methods lack.
The development of Chiral’s technology started as a national research project conducted at the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Zurich, EPFL, and Empa), and Chiral was incorporated in June 2023.
Commenting Seoho Jung, Co-founder and CEO at Chiral said, “At Chiral, we are pioneering the next generation of electronic devices across industry. Chipmakers are aware of the potential of nanomaterials and we’re bringing that potential to life. This funding will accelerate the development of our next machine, which will unlock new market opportunities with its versatility and performance. We are also excited to scale our team to keep up with the growing demand and customer base."
The global nanotechnology market size is projected to grow from $79 billion in 2023 to $248 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 17.8% (Fortune business insights research). One of the largest chipmakers in the world, TSMC, has already presented its development roadmap showing nanomaterial-based transistors as its future architecture.
“Chiral's AI- and robotics-based technology lets us envision a future where nanomaterial-based chips are being produced at the scale needed for commercialisation – a major bottleneck up until now,2 said Pascal Mathis, Founding Partner at Founderful.
Alexis Houssou, Founding Partner at HCVC, added, “With the current boom in AI applications, we stand at a pivotal moment where the slowdown of Moore's law threatens to decelerate the pace of technological progress significantly. The team at Chiral has embarked on a critical mission to pave the way toward a groundbreaking post-silicon era, promising to transcend current limitations and unlock new possibilities for advancement.”
“In the future, it will be normal for electronic devices or chips to contain nanomaterials. The development roadmaps of the world's leading chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel all share our vision. We are confident that Chiral technology will empower the industry to make this transition faster," concluded Seoho Jung.
