Singapore-based semiconductor startup Nexstrom has secured a US$12 million (RM49 million) seed funding round led by deep-tech investor Xora Innovation, with participation from Foothill Ventures and SEEDS. The investment lifts the company’s total capital to US$15 million (RM61 million), including US$3 million in non-dilutive support, directly targeting one of hardware engineering’s steepest hurdles: manufacturing 2D semiconductor materials at commercial scale.
As standard silicon transistor channels approach atomic limits, quantum mechanical effects take over. Below sub-2-nanometer gate lengths, conventional silicon suffers from severe short-channel effects and parasitic sub-threshold electron leakage, creating massive power dissipation. Atomically thin, two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides—such as single-crystal molybdenum disulfide ()—provide tight electrostatic gate control and high carrier mobility, effectively suppressing leakage at minimal thickness.
While 2D materials have shown exceptional performance in academic environments, industry adoption has stalled due to material synthesis bottlenecks. Producing uniform, defect-free, single-crystal monolayers across standard 300 mm (12-inch) substrates has remained largely elusive. Existing laboratory techniques produce fragmented flake samples or require complex mechanical transfer steps that cause contamination and incompatibility with standard semiconductor fab lines.
Nexstrom bypasses this issue through a proprietary chemical vapor deposition (CVD) hardware and process platform engineered for direct integration into commercial foundry workflows. By pairing specialized precursor chemistry with custom thermal-deposition tool architectures, the platform enables continuous, wafer-scale epitaxial growth of single-crystal 2D films directly on production-grade 12-inch substrates. This seamless integration allows leading foundries to implement post-silicon channel materials without overhauling front-end-of-line (FEOL) equipment sets.
Incubated via Xora’s venture-building program, Nexstrom is anchored by co-founder and Chief Scientist Dr. Lance Li, a pioneer in synthesis who previously directed TSMC’s corporate research into post-silicon electronics. The company is further supported by an advisory board featuring Stanford Professor Dr. Philip Wong alongside industry veterans Dr. Sundar Ramamurthy, Dr. Aaron Thean, and Dr. John Langan.
With 2D channel materials already integrated into leading-edge international foundry roadmaps, this initial capital will accelerate tool qualification, foundry integration trials, and the engineering of energy-dense computing hardware essential for demanding AI acceleration clusters and hyperscale data centers.
