€2m · Pre-Seed · Semiconductors · Berlin, Germany
Berlin-based NextGO Epi has secured €2m in Pre-Seed funding led by Vireo Ventures. Ultratech Capital Partners, IBB Ventures and angel investor Boris Habets also participated. The company will use the capital for product development, hiring and commercial expansion in Europe and other markets.
Selling the material layer, not the finished chip
NextGO Epi produces gallium-oxide epitaxial wafers for power-semiconductor manufacturers. The company grows a thin, electrically active gallium-oxide layer on a wafer substrate; customers then use that material to build devices for high-voltage applications such as charging equipment, renewable-energy inverters, data-centre power systems and grid electronics.
That upstream position shapes the business. NextGO Epi does not need to design every end product, but its material must perform consistently inside a customer’s device and manufacturing process. A promising laboratory result therefore becomes commercially useful only after repeated batches meet specification and customers qualify the wafers for their own production. The company says it can already produce industrial-quality wafers up to four inches and is serving customers across three continents.
From institute spin-out to qualified supplier
The company emerged from more than a decade of gallium-oxide research at the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth. IKZ says the founders brought the material to market readiness using the institute’s infrastructure. The funding announcement adds that the team holds two international patents and has published more than 30 scientific papers.
NextGO Epi reports more than 20 active collaborations with customers and research institutions, including Foxconn, Gallox Semiconductor, FBH and ITRI. Those relationships are more informative than a broad application list because they create routes into device testing and qualification. The execution test is whether the company can convert technical collaborations into repeat orders while expanding output without losing material consistency.
Gallium oxide offers attractive high-voltage characteristics, but it competes with established silicon-carbide and gallium-nitride supply chains. The Pre-Seed round gives NextGO Epi room to improve the product and build commercial coverage before committing to much larger manufacturing capacity. In this market, capacity becomes valuable only when customers trust the material enough to design it into devices.
Explore this theme
Europe’s Power Play 2026: Resilience is no substitute for power — World Fund, hosted on EUVC · 10 July 2026. The analysis argues that European industrial strength depends on turning frontier science into deployable capacity, the same transition NextGO Epi is attempting at the semiconductor-material layer.
Sources checked:
IKZ funding announcement · IKZ spin-out profile · Ultratech investment note · Tech.eu Funding Explorer
