Power conversion startup nabs $25 million
Published Thursday, 23rd June 2011
Transphorm, which provides power conversion technology designed to reduce energy loss, has completed a $25 million round of financing.
Investors in the company include Quantum Strategic Partners Ltd., a private investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management LLC, and previous backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital and Lux Capital.
The total capital raised by the Goleta, California-based firm, which launched in February 2011, so far comes to $63 million. The company says it will use the funding “to continue solving the multi-billion dollar power waste problem, which occurs whenever electricity from the grid is converted into usable electric power.”
The company claims its gallium nitride (GaN)-based power conversion modules reduce power waste by 90 percent, and simplify the design and manufacturing of a wide variety of electrical systems and devices, including motor drives, power supplies and inverters for solar panels and electric vehicles. Its recently expanded its operations by 30 percent to accommodate demand.
Inefficient electric power conversion results in lost energy that costs the US economy $40 billion a year and is equivalent to the output of 300 coal plants, according to Transphorm.
The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awarded Transphorm $2.95 million to invent beyond state-of-the-art, normally-off GaN switches that also moves the GaN platform to low-cost silicon substrates.
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