- Xora unveils new headquarters at Symbiosis Tower serving as a hub for venture builds, convening deep tech communities and fostering collaboration
- A*STAR joins Xora, Temasek, NTU and NUS in MoU to spin out deep tech startups
- Xora’s portfolio companies continue to make significant advancements
- Amperesand, a grid infrastructure solutions provider, partners with PSA unboXed to deploy solid-state transformer technology at Singapore’s port for sustainable electrification
- Celestial AI, which focuses on optical interconnect technology for AI data centers, announces Singapore Innovation Centre
21 October 2024, SINGAPORE – Xora Innovation (“Xora”) unveiled its new office today at Symbiosis Tower, One North, with Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and Chairman of the National Research Foundation, Mr Heng Swee Keat attending as Guest-of-Honor. The headquarters is strategically located near a concentration of deep tech startups and research institutions. It will serve as a hub to foster collaboration and partnerships among entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors, while also hosting startups incubated by Xora Venture Labs, the firm’s venture studio. This space will be focused on driving deep tech excellence and enhancing innovation in Singapore.
In addition to the launch, Deputy Prime Minister Heng announced that A*STAR will join the existing collaboration with Xora, Temasek, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and National University of Singapore (NUS) to accelerate the spinout of more deep tech startups from Singapore’s research ecosystem. In this collaboration, Xora will work closely with the partnering universities and research institutes to launch new ventures aligned with its market theses. These universities and research institutes will provide critical support by facilitating intellectual property (IP) licensing and enabling research collaboration.
Xora’s portfolio companies are achieving significant milestones. Amperesand, a grid infrastructure solutions provider and one of Xora’s first incubations, announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PSA unboXed during Xora’s office opening event. As part of this collaboration, Amperesand will deploy its solid-state transformer (SST) technology at Singapore’s port, supporting PSA’s decarbonization efforts. This partnership will see Amperesand’s SST technology being integrated into PSA’s upcoming charging infrastructure for its electric prime mover fleet. Amperesand’s SST technology provides efficient and safe high-power charging infrastructure for PSA’s electric fleet and is natively intelligent for energy monitoring and management, enabling PSA to manage its electric vehicle charging facilities with greater flexibility and more economically. Amperesand previously raised a $12.45m seed round co-led by Xora and Material Impact. This also marks Material Impact’s first ever investment in a Singapore-headquartered company.
In another win for Singapore, Celestial AI, a portfolio company of Xora, announced that it will be setting up a Singapore Innovation Centre for silicon photonics. The Centre will feature state-of-the-art silicon photonic wafer-level testing research and development (R&D) facilities, further enhancing the company's research capabilities. In addition, the Centre will partner with local research institutions and advanced packaging companies to develop the ecosystem for 2.5/3D photonics assembly and test. Celestial AI’s Photonic FabricTM technology allows artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators to connect using light, enabling unparalleled bandwidth, low latency, and low power—addressing key bottlenecks in today’s AI chips. As a leader in this field, Celestial AI is collaborating with some of the largest hyperscalers on its technology.
“At Xora, we believe Singapore is ready with the right substrate. This is not only IP and prior research, but also the combination of labs, people, companies, and infrastructure that create opportunities. What it needs now are the right catalysts - namely experienced deep tech entrepreneurs and global investors - and we believe Xora is well-positioned to be one of those catalysts,” said Alan Thompson, Chief Executive Officer at Xora.
“Over the past three years, we’ve observed growing momentum in Singapore’s deep tech startup ecosystem, with an increasing number of world class entrepreneurs and investors recognizing opportunities the country offers,” said Phil Inagaki, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer at Xora. “We believe that this decade will see the emergence of category-leading deep tech startups born out of Singapore, and we look forward to working closely with entrepreneurs building them.”