The Forum concluded with the Chips Venture Forum 2025 Award Ceremony, recognising companies driving Europe’s semiconductor future.
This year’s winner, Vertical Compute, represented by Sylvain Dubois, is pioneering next-generation in-memory computing architectures that merge logic and MRAM to overcome the data–compute bottleneck, enabling ultra-efficient AI and edge processing.
Vertical Compute has been celebrated for its outstanding innovation and potential to shape Europe’s semiconductor landscap.
In addition, the jury awarded special mentions to startups excelling in key strategic areas.
A coup de cœur of the jury on Sustainable Semiconductors (materials, processes & metrology contributing to more sustainable manufacturing) has been given to FaradaIC Sensors represented by Ryan Guterman for their deep-tech fabless semiconductor & chemistry company miniaturising electrochemical (faradaic) gas sensors onto micro-chips, enabling ultra-compact, low-power O₂, CO and H₂ detection for high-volume IoT, medical and industrial application.
A coup de cœur of the jury for its Potential in Energy-Efficient Devices has been given to SpiNNcloud represented by Matthias Lohrmann for their brain-inspired AI-inference infrastructure delivering ultra-energy efficiency.
These recognitions highlight breakthrough technologies advancing energy efficiency, sustainable semiconductor materials, and next-generation computing architectures, which are central to Europe’s strategic ambitions under the Chips Act.
The Chips Venture Forum 2025, an aCCCess initiative, operated by Blumorpho in collaboration with the EIC – European Innovation Council and European Commission , demonstrated Europe’s ambition to strengthen its semiconductor value chain, from R&D to manufacturing and industrial scaling.
As highlighted by Pierre Chastanet , Head of Unit – Microelectronics and Photonics Industry at European Commission and DG connect, during his opening speech, the Chips Venture Forum 2025 brought together the crème de la crème of Europe’s most innovative semiconductor companies for the final pitching session, held on 18 November at Messe Munich alongside SEMICON Europa.
With more than 165 participants, the Forum demonstrated the growing momentum behind the European Chips Act and Europe’s strategy to consolidate technological sovereignty and competitiveness in advanced microelectronics.
This year’s Forum highlighted 18 of Europe’s most promising semiconductor companies, carefully selected from 87 high-quality applications. Representing a wide spectrum of technologies, including advanced materials, chip architectures, photonics, sensing, green manufacturing, and AI-driven microelectronics, these startups demonstrated the depth and diversity of Europe’s innovation ecosystem.
The selected companies were:
The Forum benefitted from a distinguished jury of investors and corporate leaders representing major semiconductor and technology funds, ensuring strong alignment between market needs, industrial strategies, and innovation potential: