Technological sovereignty has become a looming priority for many countries these days, and with demand for computing power now at an all-time high, startups in the semiconductor sector have received a major boost in supporting this effort in Germany and Europe.
Black Semiconductor, which is developing a new kind of chip connectivity technology based on graphene, has raised 254.4 million euros (about $273 million at current exchange rates) in a combination of private and public funding.
This amount is one of the largest amounts raised by a European semiconductor startup to date. Black is a spin-off of the University of Aachen, co-founded by brothers Daniel and Sebastian Schall (CEO and CFO, respectively).
Daniel Schall said in an interview that the plan is to use the funds to continue R&D efforts, build a “pilot” production facility in Aachen, hire more engineers and other staff from around the world, and hone the initial phase. Business development includes working directly with leading chip manufacturers across Europe, including ASML in the Netherlands, to increase production. Additionally, cloud computing and other “hyperscaler” technology companies are the biggest buyers of the chips. Schall said that if all goes as planned, the startup expects to produce its first commercial product by 2031 in seven years.
Series A funding is important not only because of its size, but also because of the intent behind it.
The overall total of 228.7 million euros comes from the German Federal Government and North Rhine-Westphalia, a combination of shares and funds based on the provisions of “important projects of common European interest”, which amounts to 8.1 billion euros of state support. The European Commission was formed in 2023 specifically to address this large-scale technological change.
“Sovereignty in Europe is a big topic and we have the technology to keep us ahead of the curve,” Daniel said in an interview. “What we are doing is completely new. We're not chasing anyone. We have an opportunity here to do something very new, something completely new. “It’s really exciting.”
The remaining €25.7 million comes in the form of a more classic equity round. Porsche Ventures and Project A Ventures are co-leads, with participation from Scania Growth, Capnamic, Tech Vision Fonds and NRW.BANK. Vsquared Ventures, Cambium Capital and Onsight Ventures, a fund started by ARM co-founder Hermann Hauser, previously backed Black with approximately $6.6 million in seed funding in 2020 and are also participating in this latest round.
Companies that build and operate data centers are one obvious customer segment, but so are the customers of those data centers. Porsche's interest highlights that the automotive sector has become a major buyer of technology for building systems, both for autonomous functions, as well as connected vehicles for diagnostics and other services, as well as cloud-based systems that help those vehicles operate.
“Our major investment in Black Semiconductor with Project A will enable photonics technology to be seamlessly integrated into existing chips for a variety of industries, use cases and future AI applications,” said Patrick Huke, Partner and Head of Porsche Ventures. “It represents a huge opportunity to take advantage of.” name. “Backed by a combination of public and private investors, the Black Semiconductor team is now well-positioned to build a strong semiconductor business within Europe, strengthening not only our domestic competitiveness but also the overall European chip ecosystem.”
Schall said his interest in understanding why electronic devices work the way they do goes back to his childhood when he first started taking radios apart to understand how they worked. As a result, I became interested in transistors used in radios, and as I entered college, my interest in semiconductors deepened.
While working in Aachen on graphene, an atom-thick allotrope of carbon, he and his team came up with the concept of using the material for photonics to connect chips.
He said his logic for focusing on chip connectivity is not because there are many companies building chips that are already good and always improving (an area currently dominated by Nvidia and GPUs), but because the connectivity part is clearly not addressed. This is especially true in situations where hundreds or thousands of chips are working together.
Most chip connectivity efforts these days are focused on silicon-based photonics, and for a semiconductor ecosystem that typically extends to more than 100 suppliers, Schall said he saw an opportunity to break entirely new horizons by commercializing his research.
“The problem is efficiency. “At the end of the day, the biggest issue is computational efficiency,” he said.
Given the costs of running data centers for cloud computing providers, providing technology that can help reduce these costs is potentially important not only for improving margins, but also for scaling to meet data usage requirements. This is one of the reasons why Black actively communicates with potential customers in the ecosystem. , understand customer needs and secure interest even before technology is released.
