Nearfield Instruments Raises $380 Million to Help Enable the Next Era of AI Infrastructure

Today, we are excited to congratulate Nearfield Instruments on announcing a $380 million Series D financing, valuing the company at $1.6 billion and marking the largest deep-tech funding round in the Netherlands to date.

Walden Catalyst Ventures is proud to continue supporting Nearfield alongside a distinguished group of global investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company, Temasek, Qatar Investment Authority, Innovation Industries, M&G, Invest-NL, TNO Ventures, and ING.

This milestone reflects more than the growth of a single company. It highlights a broader shift underway across the semiconductor industry as AI drives unprecedented demand for computing performance and increasingly complex chip architectures.

The Infrastructure Behind AI

At Walden Catalyst Ventures, we believe the next decade of AI will be shaped not only by advances in models and applications, but by the infrastructure that enables them.

As AI workloads continue to scale, every layer of the technology stack faces increasing demands for performance, efficiency, and reliability. Semiconductors, photonics, networking, distributed computing, and advanced manufacturing technologies will all play a critical role in determining how quickly AI can continue to advance.

The industry's ability to meet these demands will depend on a new generation of enabling technologies, many of which operate behind the scenes but are essential to bringing the next wave of innovation to market.

Nearfield is one of those companies.

Why Metrology Matters

For decades, semiconductor progress was driven primarily by advances in design, lithography, and manufacturing. Today, as the industry transitions to Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors, High-NA EUV lithography, advanced 3D packaging, and future CFET architectures, a new challenge has emerged: understanding and controlling structures at the atomic and nanometer scale.

The ability to manufacture increasingly sophisticated devices depends not only on creating these structures, but also on accurately measuring, inspecting, and controlling them throughout the production process.

As a result, metrology and inspection are becoming strategic technologies at the heart of semiconductor innovation.

Nearfield has established itself as a leader in this critical category. Its advanced metrology solutions help semiconductor manufacturers improve yield, accelerate process development, and enable the reliable production of the world's most advanced chips.

As device architectures become increasingly complex, the importance of process control continues to grow. The companies that can provide the precision, reliability, and scalability required by advanced semiconductor manufacturing will play a critical role in enabling the future of computing.

Why We Invested

We were initially drawn to Nearfield because of the strength of its technical vision, the uniqueness of its approach to advanced metrology, and the growing strategic importance of process control in semiconductor manufacturing.

Over time, the company has consistently demonstrated exceptional execution, strong customer engagement, and the ability to solve some of the industry's most challenging technical problems.

Under the leadership of Co-Founder and CEO Hamed Sadeghian, Nearfield has evolved from an ambitious deep-tech startup into a global technology company serving many of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers.

Just as importantly, the company is addressing a challenge that is becoming increasingly important to the entire semiconductor ecosystem: how to continue scaling performance as manufacturing complexity reaches unprecedented levels.

Looking Ahead

Artificial intelligence is accelerating demand for more advanced semiconductors, more powerful computing systems, and more sophisticated manufacturing processes. As the industry enters this new phase, advanced metrology and inspection will become increasingly important enablers of innovation.

As AI scales, success will increasingly depend on innovations across the entire technology stack. Nearfield's leadership in advanced metrology is a powerful example of how foundational technologies can unlock the next generation of computing.

With this financing, Nearfield is well positioned to accelerate product development, expand global operations, deepen collaboration with leading semiconductor manufacturers, and continue advancing the technologies that will help define the future of computing.

We are honored to partner with Hamed and the entire Nearfield team on this journey and look forward to supporting their continued growth in the years ahead.

Congratulations to the Nearfield team on this significant milestone.