Empower Semiconductor just pulled in a Series D that wired more than $140M straight into the grid. Fidelity Management & Research Co. took point, backed by Maverick Silicon, CapitalG, Atreides Management, Socratic Partners, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Knollwood, and a wholly owned subsidiary of ADIA. Barclays Capital handled placement, making sure every amp of that money flowed clean. Stack it all up, and Empower Semiconductor has now raised north of $189M. For a company born in 2014 out of San Jose with a chip on its shoulder and a founder who knew power waste was the industry’s silent tax, this round hits like a jolt of validation.
Tim Phillips didn’t build Empower to polish legacy hardware. He built it to torch inefficiency at the core of AI, data centers, and 5G. After 30 years in semis with stops at Infineon and International Rectifier, Phillips knew regulators could be more than bulky boards stacked with parts. With CTO Trey Roessig and CFO Kurt Redfield, he’s turned that insight into 62+ patents, 40+ tied to CMOS power, and a product lineup that makes other solutions look like clunky antiques.
The EP70XX family of integrated voltage regulators sets the tone, up to 10× smaller than conventional builds, with peak efficiency pushing 92%. The Crescendo platform, sampled in 2024 and scaling into production in 2025, turns up the volume: 20× faster bandwidth, 5× density, and >10% less power loss. Translate that into data center economics and you’re talking gigawatts saved while AI workloads scale into the kilowatt-chip era.
Partnerships prove the point. Marvell co-develops custom silicon solutions for hyperscalers, TSMC builds Empower’s FinFast architecture on advanced CMOS, and Dimac Red Spa opens European markets from Italy to Germany to the UK. Offices in San Jose, Shenzhen, and Milan keep the company plugged into every major tech corridor.
The board is equally charged. Chairman Jeffrey R. Holland brings decades in finance, Richard L. Clemmer once ran NXP, Andrew C. Homan steers Maverick Silicon, John Bagatelos drives global sales at Lumentum, Kevin Leary runs Hallador, and Gene Sheridan built Navitas. This isn’t a casual lineup, it’s a grid of experience that doesn’t waste cycles.
Series D isn’t just more capital, it’s the switch to high-volume production and global adoption. Empower Semiconductor is proving the future of AI doesn’t just run on smarter algorithms. It runs on watts delivered with precision, efficiency, and scale. And that’s a current the entire industry can feel.
