News: Microelectronics
16 October 2025
MIT-spinout Vertical Semiconductor raises $11m in seed funding round led by Playground Global
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spin-out Vertical Semiconductor has raised $11m in a seed funding round led by Playground Global of Palo Alto, CA, USA to help accelerate development of vertical gallium nitride (GaN) transistors for AI chips in data centers. Additional investors include JIMCO Technology Ventures, milemark•capital, and Shin-Etsu Chemical.
The surge of AI workloads is straining data centers, and power delivery has become the critical bottleneck, notes Vertical. The firm says that its vertical GaN transistors can ease that bottleneck by pushing energy conversion closer to the chip with less power loss and heat, which is critical for powering the future of compute. This reduces energy loss, cuts heat, and simplifies infrastructure, improving efficiency by up to 30% and enabling a 50% smaller power footprint in AI data-center racks, it is reckoned.
“The pace of AI is not only limited by algorithms. The most significant bottleneck in AI hardware is how fast we can deliver power to the silicon,” says CEO & co-founder Cynthia Liao. “We’re not just improving efficiency, we’re enabling the next wave of innovation by rewriting how electricity is delivered in data centers at scale.”
Picture: MIT-spinout Vertical Semiconductor’s founders Dr Josh Perozek, Cynthia Liao, and professor Tomás Palacios.
Based on a decade of research at MIT’s Palacios Group (a gallium nitride research lab) and combined with a novel vertical architecture, Vertical’s transistors can make it easier, faster and more efficient to get power from the source to the chip, compared with silicon transistors. Vertical Semiconductor has demonstrated the technology on 8-inch wafers using standard silicon CMOS semiconductor manufacturing methods, enabling seamless integration with existing process technology and making it ready for real-world deployment for devices from 100V to 1.2kV.
“The Vertical team has cracked a challenge that’s stymied the industry for years: how to deliver high-voltage and high-efficiency power electronics with a scalable, manufacturable solution,” comments Matt Hershenson, venture partner at Playground Global. “They’re not just advancing the science – they’re changing the economics of compute.”
With a prototype in development and commercial milestones ahead, the firm plans to start early sampling for its first prototype packaged devices by the end of 2025 and a fully integrated solution in 2026.
