French Antaios Secures $11 Million in Funding

Antaios SAS, in SOT-MRAM technology (Spin-Orbit Torque Magnetic Random-Access Memory), secured $11 million in funding to accelerate innovation and develop new strategic partnerships.

With a set of attributes, SOT-MRAM has the potential to be deployed in almost every chip, becoming a candidate for the long-awaited universal (embedded) memory.

The investment comes from technology funds focused on identifying and fostering promising, fast-growth, early-stage technology companies. It is led by French VC firms Innovacom and Sofimac Innovation, together with Silicon Valley-based Applied Ventures, LLC, the VC arm of Applied Materials, Inc. Additional financing also comes from Bpifrance (French public Investment bank) and other bank partners.

“This funding is a key milestone for Antaios, asserting the value of our technology and the industry’s interest for SOT as the next-gen MRAM, which solves the limitations of its current implementations. We are proud to have attracted a blend of financial and corporate investors, bringing not only financial support, but also business outreach and savviness. We look forward to engaging with key ecosystem partners to bring the technology to the market,” said Jean-Pierre Nozières, CEO.

Vincent Deltrieu, partner, Innovacom, commented: “We are excited to provide financial and business support to a key technology company in a very high-growth market. This represents a great example of the highly innovative start-ups and disruptive technologies Innovacom successfully supports.“

Nicolas Penet, investment manager, Sofimac Innovation, said: “Led by an experienced and knowledgeable team, Antaios is ideally positioned with a solution in a booming market. Sofimac Innovation is delighted to support this high-potential start-up, spun off from public research and already part of a global ecosystem with an extremely ambitious roadmap and promising future.“

Michael Stewart, investment director, Applied Ventures, said: “Applied Ventures supports the continued development of logic-based embedded memory technologies like MRAM that offer low power, high performance and high endurance for Internet of Things and edge AI devices. We are excited to invest in Antaios and look forward to helping the company further develop its promising technology.“

By enabing simultaneously high operating speed and infinite R/W endurance, SOT has the potential to replace both embedded Non-Volatile Memory (e.g. NOR-flash) and embedded cache (e.g. SRAM) in microcontrollers, microprocessors and System-on-Chip designs. SOT is recognized as the next gen MRAM, beyond Spin-Transfer Torque (STT) which is currently ramping up at all major semiconductor foundries. SOT can be implemented on STT-MRAM manufacturing lines, therein supporting a quick market deployment in applications as diverse as IoT, mobile, computing and storage.