News: Microelectronics
10 November 2021
Transphorm completes $23m private placement with KKR and US institutional investors
Transphorm Inc of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA — which designs and manufactures JEDEC- and AEC-Q101-qualified gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) for high-voltage power conversion applications — has completed an equity financing round of $23m through a private placement of 4,600,000 shares of common stock at a price of $5 per share to KKR Phorm Investors L.P. and several US institutional investors, along with warrants to purchase an aggregate of 958,334 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $6 per share. The firm also granted the investors the right to purchase up to an additional 50% more shares of common stock with warrant coverage, on the same terms, within a certain time period.
As result of this financing, coupled with the recent conversion of $15.6m of debt to Transphorm common stock by strategic partner Yaskawa Electric Corp, Transphorm has added more than $37m of positive shareholder equity to its balance sheet, based on fair market value estimates, and continues to pursue plans to uplist its common stock on Nasdaq.
“KKR is pleased to make an additional investment in Transphorm. The GaN power market is at a very exciting inflection point, and Transphorm is positioned to capitalize on the multi-billion-dollar market with its strong fundamentals, including its broad product portfolio with superior differentiated technology,” comments Eiji Yatagawa, a partner at KKR’s overseas affiliate and a Transphorm board member since 2015. “Transphorm today has one of the largest IP portfolios in GaN power and is one of the only GaN power manufacturers ramping up in both the lower-power and higher-power market segments,” he adds.
Transphorm claims that its patented GaN platform differs from competing solutions in ways that are crucial to power conversion application performance requirements – from 45-150W fast chargers/adapters to 1-4kW gaming, data-center server and crypto-mining power supplies to >4kW higher-power industrial, UPS, and automotive converter/inverter applications. Transphorm is one of the few high-voltage GaN manufacturers that is vertically integrated, controlling the development of the FET design itself, the epitaxial starting material, and the manufacturing process.
“The additional equity raise enhances Transphorm’s financial stability and positions the business for future growth,” believes Yatagawa.
Transphorm’s strategic partner Yaskawa converts $15.6m of debt into common stock
