Soctera Raises $4M Seed for Cooler Power Amplifiers

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Soctera has closed a $4 million Seed round backed by Anorak Ventures and Multiball Capital, with 9Yards Capital, Mana Ventures and Red Bear Ventures also taking part.

The Ithaca company builds millimeter wave power amplifiers for radar, electronic warfare, satellites and telecommunications networks. Heat is the constraint in all of those applications, and it is the constraint Soctera is attacking directly.

Its approach is to co optimize the semiconductor stack electrically and thermally at the same time, rather than designing for performance and then managing the heat afterward. The company says the result cuts the gallium nitride content in each device by a factor of 20 and halves thermal resistance.

Less gallium nitride per device matters commercially as well as thermally, since the material is expensive and supply constrained.

Soctera reached this point without giving away much equity. Before the seed, it had taken in more than $4.2 million in non dilutive grant funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Air Force Research Laboratory and other government programs.

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