Nexstrom Raises $12 Mn to Take 2D Chip Materials From Lab to Fab

Singapore semiconductor start-up Nexstrom has raised $12 Mn in seed funding, led by Temasek’s deeptech investment platform Xora Innovation, as it tries to turn two-dimensional semiconductor materials from a laboratory technology into something advanced chipmakers can manufacture at scale.

California-based venture capital firm Foothill Ventures and SEEDS, an arm of the Singapore government’s investment platform SG Growth Capital, also took part. The latest round takes Nexstrom’s total funding to $15 Mn, including $3 Mn in non-dilutive funding.

Founded in 2024 and incubated through Xora’s venture-building programme, Nexstrom is not designing yet another AI processor. Instead, it is developing equipment and processes to create two-dimensional, or 2D, semiconductor materials on the large wafers used in chip fabs, betting on an earlier layer of the semiconductor supply chain. Xora is a wholly owned Temasek subsidiary and its early-stage deeptech investment platform.

The timing matters because continued improvements in computing power increasingly depend on finding ways to keep shrinking transistors without sharply increasing leakage and power consumption. Nexstrom is working with transition metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs, crystalline materials only a few atomic layers thick that researchers are studying as potential transistor channels beyond silicon.

The Hard Part is Manufacturing

Researchers have already demonstrated high-performing transistors using 2D materials. The tougher problem is making those materials consistently across entire wafers at the quality, uniformity and yield demanded by commercial semiconductor production.

That gap is becoming an industry problem rather than an academic one. In June, Belgian semiconductor research centre imec, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML demonstrated a 300 mm manufacturing route for 2D-material transistors, integrating both n-type and p-type devices on the same wafer. Imec called it a step towards moving 2D transistors from laboratory development to fabs.

Nexstrom is targeting another part of that transition. It is producing the 2D material itself at wafer scale. Its North Star platform combines deposition equipment, precursor delivery, thermal control and automated wafer handling designed to fit standard semiconductor-fab workflows. The start-up eventually wants manufacturers to produce high-quality TMD material across 300 mm (approximately 12 inches) wafers, the format used in advanced high-volume chip production.

Nexstrom says it has already achieved what it describes as commercial-grade TMD synthesis on 300 mm wafers and has delivered wafer samples to industry partners. But that should not be confused with having solved full-scale manufacturing.

Chief executive and co-founder Phoebe Tan told TechCrunch that Nexstrom has obtained material results using its newly installed 12-inch system, while its systematic scale-up has progressed from two-inch to six-inch wafers, with an eight-inch milestone targeted by the end of October. The company expects its equipment to be ready for commercial production between 2030 and 2035.

The distinction is important. Producing material on a 300 mm system is one milestone. But repeatedly producing uniform, single-crystal material across an entire wafer at yields acceptable to a commercial fab is a much higher bar.

Nexstrom says semiconductor companies are already evaluating samples of its wafers and materials, although it has not identified them. The new funding will support further development of its platform, process control and measurement capabilities, qualification programmes with potential customers and expansion of its engineering and leadership teams.

Can Singapore Help Bridge the Lab-to-Fab Gap?

The start-up also fits into Singapore’s push to capture more value from semiconductor research rather than relying only on its established manufacturing base.

Nexstrom’s technology builds partly on the work of co-founder and chief scientist Lain-Jong ‘Lance’ Li, now a professor at the National University of Singapore. Li served as director of corporate research at TSMC from 2017 to 2020, where he worked on integrating low-dimensional materials with existing semiconductor technologies. His research group at NUS focusses on large-area 2D semiconductor growth and devices for advanced nodes beyond silicon.

Xora’s involvement creates another Singapore link. Temasek set up the platform to invest in early-stage deeptech companies and has previously partnered with NUS and Nanyang Technological University to commercialise university research. Nexstrom says Li and Xora Innovation founded it.

SEEDS’ participation adds a public investment component. Singapore has been increasing funding to move semiconductor research into industry, including S$800 Mn for an RIE2030 semiconductor research flagship spanning areas such as advanced packaging and photonics. It has also planned a S$500 Mn national semiconductor R&D fabrication facility scheduled to start operations in 2027.

The city-state already has a sizeable chipmaking base. More than S$30 Bn of semiconductor investment was committed in Singapore between 2022 and 2025, according to government figures. It also accounts for about one in 10 chips produced globally and one in five semiconductor manufacturing-equipment units. The next policy challenge is to translate more research into technologies and companies that occupy higher-value parts of the semiconductor chain.

Nexstrom is still years away from knowing whether it can make that transition. Its technology must move from increasingly large wafer demonstrations to repeatable production, then survive semiconductor manufacturers’ qualification standards.

But that is also what makes the funding significant beyond another deeptech round. If 2D materials become part of future transistor architectures, value will accrue not only to the companies designing the chips, but also to those able to manufacture the new materials reliably at fab scale.

Nexstrom is betting that Singapore can own a piece of that layer.