Dresden-based semiconductor innovator FMC has raised €100 million to scale back the vitality demand of AI information centres with its sustainable and cost-efficient reminiscence chip – rating among the many largest increase of its variety within the semiconductor business.
The €77 million in fairness comes from FMC’s oversubscribed Sequence C financing spherical, led by HV Capital and the DeepTech & Local weather Fonds (DTCF), together with Vsquared Ventures. Returning buyers embrace eCAPITAL, Bosch Ventures, Air Liquide Enterprise Capital, M Ventures (Merck), and Verve Ventures. A further €23 million has been sourced via public funds, together with contributions from the IPCEI ME/CT programme and the European Innovation Council (EIC).
Thomas Rückes, CEO of FMC, stated: “We’re engaged on the following era of reminiscence chips and system options that aren’t solely extra sustainable and vitality environment friendly, but in addition quicker and cheaper than the present business commonplace. Whereas bandwidth has thus far been the dominant metric of AI compute, vitality effectivity is now changing into the important thing issue for the following era of AI.”
This €100 million increase by the Dresden-based memory-chip firm will be seen alongside a number of different 2025 European semiconductor and AI-infrastructure rounds reported by EU-Startups.
Q.ANT (Stuttgart, Germany) secured €62 million in July 2025 to advance its energy-efficient photonic processors for AI and HPC workloads. In France, Arago raised €22.1 million (Seed, July 2025) to develop its light-powered AI chip constructed to chop compute-related vitality demand. In the meantime, Scintil Photonics (Grenoble, France) closed a €50 million Sequence B in September 2025 to scale its built-in photonics platform designed for AI factories.
Collectively, these rounds characterize roughly €134 million of capital flowing into Europe’s semiconductor and AI-hardware ecosystem this 12 months.
In opposition to this backdrop, the €100 million spherical stands out as one of many bigger 2025 investments in superior chip applied sciences, significantly inside the memory-focused section, contributing additional to Europe’s rising capability in DeepTech {hardware}.
“Reminiscence chips are the principle bottleneck within the AI stack. FMC’s DRAM+ and 3D CACHE+ know-how addresses exactly this situation: Quicker and extra vitality environment friendly than established merchandise. This lays the inspiration for scaling up AI information centres and AI edge functions. Securing an fairness financing of this magnitude emphasizes the importance of our know-how, and we’re grateful to have earned the belief of main deep-tech buyers for our imaginative and prescient,” added Rückes.
Based in 2016, FMC is a number one semiconductor and reminiscence chip firm. Primarily based on the thin-film materials hafnium oxide, the corporate has created a brand new class of reminiscence cells with its DRAM+ chip – allegedly extra sustainable, quicker, and cost-efficient.
Because of its low energy consumption, the know-how reduces the vitality demand of AI information centres, laying the inspiration for his or her scale-up in Europe and worldwide.
FMC is now a fabless firm, that means it designs, develops, and markets its personal merchandise whereas outsourcing manufacturing to contract producers (chip foundries).
Fabian Gruner, Accomplice at HV Capital, stated: “FMC’s extremely revolutionary reminiscence chip know-how is exclusive and has the potential redefine world business requirements. We’re proud to again its commercialisation via our dedication.”
Even with the deliberate expansions of vitality capability, AI information facilities are anticipated to devour a really giant share of worldwide vitality manufacturing sooner or later.
FMC’s revolutionary persistent DRAM+ and 3D-CACHE+ reminiscence applied sciences and programs can reportedly cut back this vitality consumption by minimising and optimising the info transfers between compute hierarchies, which account for a considerable portion of vitality use.
When FMC’s applied sciences substitute standard reminiscence, system effectivity for high-performance databases and processing velocity for energy-efficient AI functions might enhance by greater than 100%.
That is attainable as a result of persistent DRAM+ and 3D-CACHE+ applied sciences substitute risky reminiscence, eliminating time-consuming information transfers between risky, quick, and slower non-volatile storage.
Dr Torsten Löffler, Funding Director on the DTCF, stated: “By tackling the rising vitality wants of AI infrastructure, FMC’s reminiscence know-how permits extra environment friendly computing. We’re satisfied by its technological excellence made in Germany and its strategic position in strengthening Europe’s semiconductor sovereignty.”
Reminiscence chips have develop into a strategically essential know-how that’s at present being dominated completely by South Korea, the U.S., and Taiwan, with China quickly catching up.
Up to now, Europe has not had a big presence on this vital semiconductor section. Rising in Silicon Saxony, FMC appears to be like to be that credible participant with the ambition to shut this strategic hole from inside Europe.
Paul-Josef Patt, Managing Accomplice at eCAPITAL, stated: “From day one, we now have been supporting FMC on its spectacular development journey. Pilot outcomes affirm design wins with main OEMs, and the roadmap for manufacturing and commercialisation is in place. FMC demonstrates that DeepTech from Europe can ship and has the potential to take the lead within the reminiscence chips of the long run.”
The contemporary funding will speed up the commercialisation of the corporate’s DRAM+ and 3D CHACHE+ reminiscence chips and system options and broaden its world presence.
The corporate was additionally included within the complete checklist of “59 High Semiconductor Startups and Corporations in Germany” from 2021.
