Top Semiconductors & Hardware Investors 2026

Maverick Silicon backs private companies designing or producing chips, hardware, software, or processes that address the structural, seemingly insatiable demand for compute fueled by the AI era. As a division of $10B Maverick Capital, the fund applies institutional analytical rigor to late-stage semiconductor growth investing, targeting companies with validated technology and near-term commercial deployment.

Investing in unproven technologies to drive disruptive innovation and redefine the future of AI, computing, and global commerce. Focus on the full compute stack: advanced compute silicon, memory storage, data movement, chip packaging, software toolchains, and compute silicon. The agentic AI era will require fundamentally new hardware architectures.

Atinum Investment identifies and invests in companies solving fundamental problems through technology innovation and market disruption. The firm specializes in growth-stage startups and paradigm-shifting companies across diverse sectors.

Originator of China's "hard tech" (硬科技) investment category: back deep, long-R&D-cycle science and engineering breakthroughs out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences network and top universities, from lab/PI stage through IPO, combining capital with an incubation platform and post-investment services.

Samsung Catalyst Fund invests in deep tech AI infrastructure — semiconductor hardware, AI compute, interconnects, networking, autonomous systems, quantum computing, and digital health — that can scale globally through Samsung's manufacturing, supply chain, and distribution platform. The fund seeks co-prosperity: wins for founders, partner investors, and the communities where they operate.

Because semiconductor startups deserve a semiconductor VC: early-stage capital and industrial know-how for European semiconductor, photonics and advanced materials founders.

Captive KBC Group venture fund backing deep-tech companies in nanotechnology, microelectronics and IoT (B2B, software and hardware), plus Start it @KBC alumni, mainly in Belgium and neighbouring countries.

Physics is the basis for industry transformations in energy, transportation, finance, healthcare, and aerospace. Quantonation invests in breakthrough technologies emerging from advances in physics and computing -- quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum networks, deep physics, and advanced materials -- from pre-seed through Series A, with selective Series B follow-on.

Investing in technological innovation to drive value creation with social impact, combining a VC lens on growth potential and industry trends with a growth investor's risk discipline. Sources opportunities in healthcare, AI & technology, consumer, and enterprise solutions, with a strong bias toward scientist-entrepreneur-led hard tech.

KDT backs principled entrepreneurs building disruptive technologies across connectivity, cybersecurity, healthcare, enterprise software, semiconductors, supply chain/manufacturing, energy, and fintech. KDT differentiates through Koch Labs® — connecting portfolio companies to Koch Industries' global commercial ecosystem and subject matter experts — enabling faster commercial deployment and scaling than traditional VC.

AMD Ventures invests across the entire AI ecosystem — from foundational models to semiconductor hardware — advancing high-performance computing and enabling pervasive AI. Portfolio companies gain access to AMD Instinct GPU infrastructure, AMD engineering expertise (ROCm ecosystem), and AMD's enterprise go-to-market network.

Celesta invests in brilliance at the forefront of science and engineering, targeting companies that enable mass adoption of emerging tech, radically improve health outcomes, and transform large industries. Focus on platforms enabling emerging tech adoption, bioconvergence innovations (high-tech + biotech), and technologies disrupting legacy industries with deep tech.

Unearth, invest and grow startups into global leaders. iGlobe targets game-changing innovations at the frontier of deep tech — semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, and biotech — with a global orientation and a Singapore hub. Founded by Soo Boon Koh, Singapore's first female VC, the firm brings 25+ years of cross-border investing expertise and a top-quartile performance record.

Backing founders and teams building lasting companies across TMT, healthcare, consumer & entertainment, and advanced manufacturing/clean tech, with a multi-decade time horizon and a bridge role between China and global capital markets.

We back MIT founders building deep-tech companies with defensible science or engineering advantages. We support the transition from researcher to founder, providing both capital ($500K-$5M) and operational support through the MIT ecosystem.

Seed-stage generalist fund for Southern California technology and life science startups. Bottom-up, team-first, seed and feed with reserves for follow-ons, backed by an engaged member network.

Backs trailblazers solving hard problems in large markets through deep technology investments across Intelligence (AI, computing, quantum), Human (health, medicine, wellness), and Planet (sustainability, energy, space).

Frontier-tech venture capital backing technical founders building hard-to-replicate engineering and science breakthroughs across defense & aerospace, space, energy, semiconductors, manufacturing/IoT/robotics, advanced materials, water & agriculture, and biotech. Conviction over consensus, substance over story.

Provide growth capital to European B2B deeptech companies with proven revenue and proprietary technology, and help them scale globally through build-ups, M&A and new markets.

Onsight Ventures backs early-stage, technology-driven European deep tech companies across New Compute, Quantum Technology, Physical AI & Cybersecurity, and TechBio & Synthetic Biology, aiming to contribute to European technological sovereignty by scaling breakthrough science into market-leading companies with global reach.

Seizing the North of England's innovation opportunity by investing in science and technology startups with strong intellectual property solving global problems. Partners with the four Northern Arc universities (Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool) and the broader North of England ecosystem. Philosophy: profit with purpose — backing visionary founders with exceptional teams, breakthrough technology, and business models that deliver both financial returns and societal impact.

M Ventures backs transformational, technical founders across biotech and deep tech whose innovations can generate strong financial returns while plausibly intersecting with Merck's mid-to-long-term business interests. It takes an active, hands-on role, frequently co-leading rounds and brokering partnerships between portfolio companies and Merck or other industry players.

Revenue-adding corporate venture partner: capital plus access to KPN's customers, network, infrastructure and expertise for technology companies relevant to KPN's B2C and B2B customers or the telco sector.

Invest in technology today for the innovations that will shape tomorrow: early-stage, deep-tech-led startups in AI, cybersecurity, data and software infrastructure, backed by strong technology or IP.

Scalable, defensible innovation at the intersection of software, hardware, and intelligence. Champion founders driving the next wave of technological innovation across Cloud, Devices, Frontier, and Silicon domains. Breakthrough technologies emerge from convergence of multiple domains.

We invest in technology-driven transformational companies shaping the future of business, entertainment and society. We foster Sony's future businesses through strategic early-stage venture investments, seeking technologies with potential to transform industries while building synergies with Sony Group business units.

We back founders using technology to solve the world's biggest problems. We believe capitalism can be a force for good when companies are built to be both massively profitable AND create positive impact. The best entrepreneurs are determined, passionate, smart, creative, and can inspire thousands of talented people.

Serve industry, contribute to society, repay the nation through professional capability. Act as an industry integrator and innovation driver across advanced manufacturing, IT, new materials/new energy, life sciences, and tech-driven consumption, pairing capital with operational and industrial-resource support.

Back technical teams working on breakthrough products. We invest in seed stage companies that demonstrate technical differentiation - meaning technical or product-level superiority is a major reason for future success. We pursue investments from application layer (AI/ML) through software infrastructure to hardware layers (semiconductors, photonics).

Deep tech unlocks new and ground-breaking pathways to solve fundamental societal challenges. We back technical founders with unique, defendable IP addressing large markets, providing hands-on, long-term capital across the full company lifecycle.

Identifies technology transitions creating market opportunities, particularly AI/ML-powered automation transforming enterprise infrastructure. Current focus on AI security (Zenity, DataGrail, Grip Security), AI durability (Diagrid), and AI observability (Kentik) — the three pillars needed to bring AI from experimentation to production at scale.

Everyday more enjoyable and wonderful: invest globally in emerging technology, B2C and entertainment startups and young founders, plus concentrated positions in Japanese listed companies, using the Colopl group's product knowledge.

Fund visionary entrepreneurs solving humanity's most intractable, long-horizon science and engineering problems, taking a poly-solution approach that backs many independent bets on the same hard problem (especially Alzheimer's disease and depression) rather than a single best guess, judged on both societal and financial impact.

Disruptive ideas supercharged: back seed-stage deep tech and hardware (including hardware-interfacing software) companies in the Nordics and Baltics that deliver social or environmental impact, getting involved before revenue and pushing portfolio companies to revenue within six months.

Software is eating the world, but we're eating hard tech. We are the scientific founder's partner, providing capital and co-creation to help academic researchers translate deep science into commercial hard-tech companies.

First-check investors to exceptional founders building category-defining companies and to emerging venture funds reshaping the industry. Formation-stage specialists operating as partners from inception, not simply deploying capital.

We back dropouts, renegade students, and deep-tech scientists working on ideas that would appear in science fiction. We exist to prove that great founders don't need university degrees and are found in the oddest places. We invest at inception stage (R&D through Seed), providing capital, mentorship, community access, and operational support. People-first approach: it's more about the who than the what.

We back entrepreneurs using computational approaches (AI, simulation) to solve trillion-dollar problems in climate, health, industrial transformation, and national security. Deep tech requires patient capital and scientific rigor.

Back early-stage founders transforming the physical enterprise: supply chain software, physical AI infrastructure and AI datacenter supply chain, where the partners have industry and technology depth.

Frontier technology will underpin the next generation of globally significant companies. We back IP-rich, deep tech founders advancing intelligence, reinventing energy, accelerating computation, decoding biology, and building resilience — categories where traditional venture playbooks don't apply.

NIF invests in cutting-edge science and engineering startups that strengthen the defence, security, and resilience of NATO Allied nations. Backed by 24 sovereign governments, NIF provides deep tech founders with unprecedented access to government procurement markets across 24 countries, connectivity to ~90 NATO-affiliated test centres, and 6,000+ Allied scientists. NIF leads initial investments with up to €15M and maintains substantial follow-on reserves.

We back bold founders at the earliest stages with capital and deep operational support. High-conviction, long-term partnerships with founders solving real problems. Founder-market fit above all else. Speed, transparency, and staying committed through difficult times.

Bespoke Capital for Enduring Impact. Gobi invests where capital alone is insufficient — requiring deep local relationships, sustained engagement, and informed judgment across Asia's diverse and complex markets. They focus on technology companies solving structural inefficiencies across underserved Asian markets, from fintech to deep tech to sustainable infrastructure.

Evaluate risk objectively, confront fear rather than avoid it, and prepare in advance for shifts in the capital markets; back technology-oriented startups with defensible barriers, global scalability, independence from conglomerate patronage, and exponential growth potential.

Backing transformative founders building exceptional companies across all sectors

Korea Investment Partners backs global winners across early to growth stages, combining capital with operating support and cross-border expansion help.

We find, fund, and empower entrepreneurs who turn technological advancements into hardware and software products that fundamentally improve industrial value chains, aiming to build category winners that form the backbone of a thriving, sovereign European industrial ecosystem.

We partner with entrepreneurs who transcend the constraints of space and time, seeing beyond the obvious to chart new frontiers, enable new capabilities, and create new markets.

Actively champion founders and entrepreneurs, fostering a culture where startups thrive, while serving as the bridge to Sony that drives deeper engagements through technical expertise and network access. Focused on DeepTech, Entertainment, EnterpriseTech, Fintech/DLT, ClimateTech, and Location-Based Entertainment.

Backing the builders of the next layer of computing across AI infrastructure, defense, biotech, and American dynamism. Former 'Software is Eating the World' thesis evolved to 'AI is Eating Software'. Partners with technical founders building foundation models, cloud systems, and infrastructure for the AI era.

Kindred backs visionary and relentless founders building the future using technology and science at the earliest stages, often helping form companies before they exist. With Kindred Ventures IV and Kindred Selector II, the firm is emphasizing the novel intelligence frontier: AGI-capable models and harnesses that extend human capabilities, new AI-native consumer and enterprise experiences, physical AI, compute, infrastructure, energy, science, outer space, and inner space.

Partnering with founders building world-changing innovation by blending the global power of Hitachi with the speed of independent venture investing, across Digital, Industrial, Environment, and Healthcare themes.

Long-term partners in company building, backing mission-driven founders in fintech, AI and data infrastructure, and cybersecurity with vertical expertise and operating partners.

We invest in companies organized around five concrete objectives: improving worldwide health and happiness, promoting resource sustainability, increasing human potential and productivity, increasing knowledge/empathy/connectedness, and disrupting industries that resist these goals. We operate as both investors and company-builders, providing operational expertise and hands-on support far beyond capital.

Invest along the aquaculture and seafood value chain (next-generation farming, regenerative aquaculture, nutrition, enabling technology, health and genetics, alternative seafood) for competitive returns and healthier oceans.

Innovation is essential to restoring the balance between nature and society. SHIFT backs European founders where environmental impact and financial returns reinforce each other.

Clear invests in first-wave innovators in frontier technology — especially AI/ML, semiconductors, enterprise software, IT infrastructure, and security. We partner with magnetic founders tackling spectacular markets, providing seed capital, key connections, and company-building insights from operators who have built and scaled companies through IPOs.

Frontier Tech fund focusing on startups that apply advanced technologies to solve Real Problems. Three core verticals: AI Software & Applications, AI Hardware & Embodied Intelligence, and AI for Science & Manufacturing. 'See them as ourselves' — we succeed when our founders succeed.

Toyota's early-stage venture arm backing deep tech and climate tech founders in AI, robotics, computing, aerospace, mobility, energy and carbon capture.

Investible backs the visionaries advancing humanity through technology, investing at Pre-Seed through Series A alongside Club Investible, its global syndicate of 250+ investors, and activating its network to help founders scale.

Back European founders turning science into industrial-scale companies across three topics: Resilience in Energy & Resources, Future of Computing, and Frontiers in Health & Bio. Wants to be the first institutional partner.

Transformative national security solutions emerge from early-stage private-sector startups developing frontier technologies. IQT identifies, evaluates, and leverages innovations to accelerate government adoption while enhancing commercial success. As of May 2026, IQT is emphasizing mission investing through fewer larger bets in autonomy, contested logistics, critical infrastructure, and technologies that can move to mission use quickly.

Incubate Fund provides unwavering hands-on support to visionary entrepreneurs from the earliest stages. As Japan's leading seed-stage VC, they go beyond capital to provide operational support, founder counseling, talent recruitment, and business introductions. Core question: 'Does this action lead to impact?'

Kakao Ventures finds the 'one reason' a startup will succeed — the single differentiating capability that makes a mission inevitable — and provides capital and co-pilot support to help that potential bloom. They focus on mission-driven founders in deep tech, ICT services, digital healthcare, and gaming at seed and pre-Series A stages.

We invest in mission-driven companies that dare to tackle impossible challenges, striving to transform industries and create lasting societal impact. We seek founders with audacity to dream big, resilience to persevere, and potential to build forever companies that shape human history.

Support the realization of start-ups' dreams by sharing the aspirations of entrepreneurs, establishing trust as a capital partner, and assisting throughout all growth stages — from seed to IPO. MUCAP invests across all industry types and stages with particular depth in life sciences (dedicated department) and new industrial fields requiring patient capital.

Underestimated founders are systematically mispriced assets that create alpha rather than requiring concessionary returns. We invest in the very best founders who identify as women, people of color, or LGBTQ, treating capital allocation as activism.

Where breakthrough science turns into world-changing companies. We back scientists and engineers at the earliest stages—pre-formation and pre-product—at the intersection of AI, engineered biology, next-gen compute, and hard science. If it's too early for everyone else, it's probably right for us.

Back founders in frontier tech, climate tech and AI-native software at the belief stage, before proof, with a tilt toward science-led, IP-driven companies in India.

Co-invest 200k checks in early-stage B2B deeptech founders in hardware and software, sourced from the ZOLLHOF incubator programs and beyond; materialize the missing.

Back determined founders with uncommon insights solving the world's biggest problems through transformative deeptech. Focus on moonshots: multi-billion-dollar, step-change opportunities across Future Compute (quantum, alternative architectures), Defense & Dual-Use (aerospace, strategic tech), Smart Planet (robotics, climate, materials), and Humantech (AR/VR, interfaces). Frame investments through free-world resilience lens, prioritizing Western technological independence. Support founders through capital, operational guidance, technical expertise, and extensive networks.

Sky9 backs technical founders building category-defining companies across AI, consumer internet, fintech, deep tech, and biotech. The firm uses a cross-border platform and direct partner involvement to help companies scale from the earliest stages into international growth.

Invest in early-stage tech companies addressing world's largest market opportunities and solving humanity's biggest challenges. Leverage global distributed team to source, evaluate, and support transformational founders.

Backs transformative deep-tech entrepreneurs pursuing technically ambitious, capital-intensive breakthroughs years before markets validate them, providing capital plus hands-on partnership to help scale.

AI is a milestone in data maturity progression, not a product category. Argonautic invests in founders building data-centric solutions across infrastructure (horizontal) and vertical markets. Multi-fund structure allows pre-seed to Series B deployment with unified thesis: recognizing verticals at different data adoption stages and deploying capital to those crossing inflection points into AI operationalization.

Invest in only two kinds of technologies: those that move humanity toward utopia, and those that hold the line against oblivion. Back n-of-1 visions for an era of Black Swans—unconventional companies solving civilization-scale problems that others dismiss as too early, too risky, or too misunderstood.

Back deeptech entrepreneurs with deep technical expertise, integrity-driven vision, and complex problem-solving capabilities working at intersections of space, autonomous mobility, advanced materials, quantum computing, and climate technology. Use aerospace systems lens to identify dual-use deep-science technologies with extraordinary technical leadership and first-principles engineering expertise capable of unlocking entirely new economies.

Deeptech Labs is the catalyst for deep tech success: it backs seed-stage startups where a novel underlying technology is fundamental to the business, and embeds each cohort in a network of entrepreneurs, researchers, and corporate partners to prepare them for a strong Series A.

With the aid of capital and experience, partner with entrepreneurs building deep-tech, smart-manufacturing, and internet-driven consumption businesses to transform their ideas into world-leading enterprises.

Identify exceptional founders and unique talent combinations building contrarian, under-the-radar technology solutions. Provide hands-on support, operational guidance, and board-level involvement to early-stage Series A and B companies, primarily in Southern California. We fight for our founders and expect all investments to succeed.

Fund and support deep tech B2B start-ups and scale-ups building technologies essential to a more resilient Europe.

Bridge US and global technology startups with more than 40 leading Asian multinational corporations, validating strategic partner intent pre-investment to accelerate go-to-market and drive follow-on co-investment.

India's next development chapter will be driven by deep tech companies solving complex health, safety and efficiency problems. Back visionary technical founders with unique IP and global ambition at pre-seed and seed, and help them reach global capital and markets.

Great companies can start anywhere, not just on the coasts. A first-check, founder-led fund backing Midwest founders, especially in Chicago, with capital, connections and community.

Invests in category-defining enterprise (B2B) and marketplace companies led by visionary entrepreneurs, sector agnostic with focus themes in applied AI, logistics and supply chain, vertical solutions, infrastructure and productivity, and sustainability and energy. About 80% of investments are in the Super South, with Atlanta as home.