News: Microelectronics
5 September 2024
Applied Ventures and ITIC-Taiwan join Wise-integration’s Series B funding round
Fabless company Wise-integration of Hyeres, France — which was spun off from CEA-Leti in 2020 and designs and develops gallium nitride (GaN) integrated circuits and digital-control technologies for power supplies — says that the investment fund Applied Ventures-ITIC Innovation Fund (AVITIC) has joined its Series B funding round.
AVITIC is a joint venture fund of Applied Ventures LLC (the corporate venture arm of Applied Materials Inc of Santa Clara, CA, USA) and ITIC-Taiwan (Industrial Technology Investment Corp, the venture capital arm of Taiwan’s R&D consortium Industrial Technology Research Institute). Wise-integration announced its €15m Series B funding round in February, led by IMEC.XPAND, accompanied by Supernova Invest, the lead of the previous round. The amount of the additional funding was not disclosed.
The Series B round will fuel mass production and commercial deployment of Wise-integration’s flagship products, WiseGan and its disruptive digital-control technology WiseWare, and support for clients globally. The firm will also increase its focus on high-value markets such as the industrial, telecom and automotive sectors.
“We are pleased to have AVITIC join us as a strategic investor,” says Wise-integration’s CEO Thierry Bouchet. “Their support demonstrates the strong potential of our technology and vision. It elevates our global standing and sharpens our ability to harness GaN technology with cutting-edge digital control.”
In addition to ramping up production of its flagship products, Wise-integration plans to use the Series B funding to accelerate development of a new generation of high-performance GaN technology designed to integrate with digital controls and boost the efficiency and performance of power systems across various sectors.
“With their WiseWare digital control and WiseGaN, it could further unleash the potential of GaN and boost the efficiency of power electronics,” comments ITIC’s president Michel Chu.
“Enabling next-generation power electronics is an important pillar of sustainability,” notes Anand Kamannavar, VP & global head of Applied Ventures. “We look forward to supporting Wise-integration in developing their differentiated GaN technologies.”
Wise-integration forms Hong Kong-based subsidiary to manage Asian business development
