German solar wafer manufacturer Nexwafe is one of eight companies to receive investments in the latest round of the European Commission’s Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up call, an initiative addressing a market gap in deep tech financing in Europe.
German solar wafer specialist Nexwafe is one of eight European companies to receive funding in the latest round of scale-up investments European Commission‘s EIC STEP Scale Up call.
The initiative aims to address a market gap in deep tech scale-up financing in Europe for companies working on digital, clean or resource-efficient technologies. It offers qualified companies between €10 million ($11.6 million) and €30 million in financing to help drive private co-investments and raise financing rounds of more than €50 million.
Nexwafe, headquartered in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau, is working to commercialize a developed production process for green solar wafers that the company believes can make the solar industry more sustainable. It develops and produces monocrystalline silicon wafers grown directly from low-cost raw materials, through a continuous, direct gas-to-wafer manufacturing process that reportedly eliminates the need for expensive and energy-intensive intermediate steps such as polysilicon production and billet drawing that traditional wafer production relies on.
The process also reportedly minimizes waste, reducing waffle production costs by as much as 30%. According to the company, it also reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 70% during production.
Last December, it achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 24.4% for a heterojunction solar cell built with ultra-thin wafers. It also announced a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell it developed in collaboration with the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology that achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 28.9%.
At the time, Nexwafe reported that its EpiWafers technology could help module manufacturers achieve dramatically higher levels of efficiency without having to upgrade production lines. The company also said its technology could enable the production of ultra-thin wafers, which has already been demonstrated through a pilot line at its headquarters.
Nexwafe will provide part of the 171 million euros that the European Commission will distribute to the most recently selected companies for EIC STEP scale-up financing. The other seven companies are spread across France, Germany and the Netherlands and are working on applications such as space operations, laser-guided fusion and photonic quantum computers.
The eight winners, in addition to 21 additional companies that applied to the scheme but were not selected, have also been accredited with the STEP seal, intended to facilitate access to additional or alternative financing.
The EIC STEP scale-up call had a total budget of €300 million allocated for 2025 and this will continue in 2026 with the same budget. The funding call remains open on an ongoing basis for the committee’s funding and procurement portal with evaluation sessions taking place every quarter. The next selection round is scheduled for February 11, 2026.
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