It’s been a busy year for Nowi. This summer, Huawei announced it had chosen the semiconductor company’s energy-harvesting PMIC to power their IoT devices. Now, a few months later, the Delft-based startup has closed its Series-A funding round – yielding 8 million euros. The round of investment was led by the Amsterdam-based Disruptive Technology Ventures, which also chipped in 1.5 million euros just last year (link in Dutch). In all, Nowi has raised more than 12 million euros in funding for its IoT chip solution.
While traditional electronic devices rely on charging by users, Nowi’s energy-harvesting power management integrated circuit (PMIC) technology makes it possible to store small amounts of energy and use it to run electronics. This is achieved by converting light, vibrations or temperature differences into a usable current. Meaning Nowi’s chip makes it possible to develop products that can charge themselves with the available energy in their environment. By combining its high energy conversion efficiency (80-90 percent) with a footprint that’s 30 times smaller than conventional products, the PMIC can be used in a number of small products like smart watches and sensors.
With this injection of capital, Nowi is now focusing on expanding and bringing its product to the market. “This new 10-million-dollar Series-A round of funding enables us to further grow the team and complete the transition from start-up to a mature organization, while still retaining a majority position in the company,” comments Nowi CEO Simon van der Jagt. “As we launch our first NW-A2.3 Energy Harvesting PMIC product in the first half of 2020, we’ll further expand our commercial activities. This also enables collaborations with partners with a longer time horizon.”