Rotterdam-based Nearfield Instruments, a startup specialising in process control and metrology solutions, announced on Monday that it has secured additional funding from Invest-NL, Innovation Industries, and TNO.
The latest capital infusion will help Nearfield Instruments bolster its series production capabilities to meet market needs. This will further strengthen the company’s product portfolio.
Invest-NL invests €11M in its Deep Tech Fund.
Hamed Sadeghian, CEO of Nearfield Instruments says, “We are pleased with this additional round of funding. It will enable us to enhance our series production capabilities following the successful completion of our customer’s assessment of our first in-line process control product QUADRA.”
“This investment will enable us to accelerate the introduction of our second product to the market, namely non-destructive subsurface nano-scale metrology.”
“We celebrate the continued involvement of our current investors and welcome TNO’s investment,” adds Sadeghian.
The announcement comes two years after raising €12M and €17.5M in equity funding.
Nearfield Instruments: Develops process control metrology solutions
Founded by Roland van Vliet and Hamed Sadeghian in 2016, Nearfield Instruments is a spin-off of TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research).
The company operates from Rotterdam (head office) and Eindhoven (High Tech Campus).
The company currently has 139 employees.
The Dutch company develops and delivers breakthrough process control metrology solutions that measure essential 3D nanostructures non-destructively during microchip manufacturing.
Examples of microchips are memory and logic processors for laptops, smartphones, data centers, etc. Measuring these structures is essential to producing good chips.
Nearfield Instruments’ technique is based on so-called “Scanning Probe Microscopy” (SPM), in which the surface is scanned in three dimensions with an atomically sharp tip.
Nearfield Instruments has improved and refined SPM to achieve significant measurement speeds and non-destructively measure complex 3D structures both on the surface (product “QUADRA”) and below the surface (product “AUDIRA”).
Other metrology technologies (often based on electrons or light (photons)) cannot measure the smallest 3D nanostructures accurately or quickly non-destructively.
The investors
Invest-NL is the Dutch national financing and development institution. As an impact investor, Invest-NL focuses on enabling financing for companies initially considered unfinanceable.
In collaboration with other financiers, investors, and development specialists – both in the public and private sector – Invest-NL focuses on critical societal challenges.
This includes moving towards a carbon-neutral and circular economy, ensuring affordable and accessible healthcare, and supporting deep technological innovations.
René Brama, Senior Investment Manager at Invest-NL, is pleased with the additional financing for Nearfield Instruments and states: “We have great confidence in the management team and the advanced technology of Nearfield Instruments.” This significant commitment from our Deep Tech Fund represents the essential type of deep tech investments for which the Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund (DTF) was established.”
Innovation Industries is a Dutch venture capital firm focused on high-tech, medical technology, and agri-food technology companies.
In addition to financial support, Innovation Industries provides operational and strategic support to optimally position its portfolio companies for success.
Nard Sintenie, Partner at Innovation Industries says, “Nearfield Instruments has developed very well since its inception and has reached significant technical and commercial milestones with the market acceptance of its first product. As a proud investor and shareholder from the beginning, we are pleased to continue our support for Nearfield Instruments.”
“This round will accelerate the scale-up of the company’s series production and customer support organisation, as well as the expansion of its customer base. We are confident that Nearfield Instruments will continue to be at the forefront of metrology for the global semiconductor industry in the coming years.”
TNO is an independent research organisation based in the Netherlands. It offers a wide range of advanced technological and scientific solutions.
TNO’s primary focus is on applied science, supporting industry and government with innovative, practical knowledge.
Hans Boumans, Technology Transfer Director at TNO says, “We are delighted to announce TNO’s participation, which underscores our confidence in Nearfield Instruments, a TNO spin-off. It demonstrates our commitment to supporting Dutch high-tech scale-ups pioneering breakthrough technologies. We strongly believe in the vision and potential of Nearfield Instruments. We are excited to see them push the boundaries of what is possible in the field of nanoelectronics.
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