Nearfield Instruments raises €380 m, valued at €1.6 bn

A Dutch company specializing in critical measurement technology for semiconductor manufacturing has raised 380 million euros in new funding, achieving a valuation of 1.6 billion euros and becoming the Netherlands' newest technology "unicorn." Nearfield Instruments, based in Rotterdam, announced the Series D investment round on Monday, June 22, 2026, describing it as the largest ever funding round for a Dutch deep-tech company.

The round was led by the U.S. investment firm Fidelity Management Research Company. It included participation from new investors such as Singapore's state fund Temasek and the Qatar Investment Authority, alongside existing backers including TNO Ventures and ING. The Dutch state-backed investor InvestNL also participated.

Founded in 2016 as a spin-out from the Dutch research institute TNO, Nearfield Instruments develops advanced 3D metrology and inspection systems. These tools are used to detect microscopic defects on silicon wafers during the chip fabrication process, a field known as semiconductor metrology. As chipmakers pack more than 100 billion transistors onto fingernail-sized surfaces and build complex three-dimensional architectures, the margin for...