Vertical secures $11M to advance development of GaN transistors
Built on a decade of research at MIT’s Palacios Group, Vertical’s breakthrough transistors use GaN. Vertical has demonstrated the technology on 8-inch wafers using standard silicon CMOS semiconductor manufacturing methods.
Vertical Semiconductor, a company spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has announced USD 11 million in seed funding led by Playground Global to help accelerate development of vertical GaN (gallium nitride) transistors, the next wave of power 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. The company’s vertical GaN transistors 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 breakthrough 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, according to a media release.
“The most significant bottleneck in AI hardware is how fast we can deliver power to the silicon,” said Cynthia Liao, CEO and co-founder of Vertical. “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.”
Built on a decade of research at MIT’s Palacios Group, Vertical’s breakthrough transistors use GaN. Vertical has demonstrated the technology on 8-inch wafers using standard silicon CMOS semiconductor manufacturing methods.
“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,” said 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 company plans to start early sampling for its first prototype packaged devices by the end of the year and a fully integrated solution in 2026, the media release said.
