CM portfolio company Global Power Technology (“GPT”) raised a Series B round that totals 300 million RMB. GPT is the pioneer in China in the industrialization of silicon carbide (“SiC”) power device, which has significant impacts in areas such as New Energy, PV Inverter, Electric Vehicle, and Advanced Energy Storage. The series B round investment was lead by Liuyang Investment, government investment vehicle of Liuyang, Hunan Province. China Three Gorge Investment, CM Venture Capital, Cherami Investment Group and others joined the round.

Dr. Chen Tong, the CEO of GPT, founded the company back in 2012 to build the first fab for SiC power devices. He and his team have been devoting to develop the Chinese semiconductor industry and gaining market share in SiC power device market. GPT’s 4” fab line remains China’s leading commercial fab line for SiC IC.

As more businesses are turning their eyes to the New Infrastructure Construction, especially in the field of 5G, AI, and Big Data, thanks to the growing government support, the future market prospect for SiC semiconductor device is bright in China. The uptake of SiC IC in EV also drives robust global growth.

The new funding will mainly be used to construct a new 6” fab line in Liuyang Hunan, which is expected to complete in 2020. The funding will also support company’s further production line expansion from SiC IC to modules and systems.

CM Venture Capital Managing Partner Dr. Min Zhou commented: “When CM invested in GPT in 2017, company was in cashflow crunch as SiC power device IC has long customer qualification cycle while a fab line has high capital investment and maintenance cost, such that it has high cash-burn rate when fab utilization rate is low. However, CM believed that SiC third generation semiconductor has bright future and GPT has first-mover advantage, so we invested and helped the company to address its cashflow problem. We are delighted to see that GPT has come a long way in the last three years, not only staying as the undisputed leader in the industry, but also staying ahead of the curve by building the 6” fab line to prepare for future market growth”.