17:20 – 18:00
VC Shark Tank: MEMS and Sensors Startups
Moderator
Rouzbeh Borhani
Plug and Play Tech Center
Rouzbeh is the Founder and Head of the Semiconductor practice at Plug and Play, the largest corporate innovation platform in the world and one of the most active early-stage investors globally. He collaborates closely with entrepreneurs, corporate innovation leaders, and investors, focusing on the semiconductor industry value chain.
Previously, Rouzbeh served as the Country Retail Management Director in the Consumer Electronics sector.
Rouzbeh holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Disruptive Innovation, along with a Bachelor of Science in Mechatronics Engineering. He is currently a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His passion lies at the intersection of technology and business.
Plug and Play Tech Center
Company Profile
Plug and Play is the ultimate innovation platform. Our mission is to build the world’s leading innovation platform and make innovation open to anyone, anywhere. We do this by connecting entrepreneurs, corporations, and investors worldwide.
Over the past 15 years, we have brought together 35,000+ startups, 500+ world-leading corporations, and hundreds of venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies across 20+ industries.
We are active in 50+ locations globally, including the U.S., China, France, Germany, South Africa, Singapore, Indonesia, Brazil, and more.
Together with our partners, we are creating a unique ecosystem designed to facilitate meaningful introductions, invest in startups, and bring together key stakeholders.
The industries we focus on include Agtech, Animal Health, Brand & Retail, Crypto & Digital Assets, Energy, Enterprise, Fintech, Food & Beverage, Health, Insurtech, IoT, Maritime, Media & Ad, Mobility, New Materials & Packaging, Real Estate & Construction, Smart Cities, Supply Chain, Sustainability, and Travel & Hospitality.
Moderator
Yvonne Lutsch, Ph.D.
Lam Capital
Yvonne joined Lam Capital in October 2024 as Investment Director, bringing over 7 years of venture capital experience from Bosch Ventures USA, where she led investments in deep tech fields like AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, sensors, and industrial technology. She also has 13+ years of operational experience at Bosch, having served in leadership roles across technology scouting, business development, engineering, and manufacturing in both mobility as well as consumer electronics. Yvonne holds a PhD in Applied Physics from University of Tuebingen and a Diploma in Experimental Physics from University of Siegen, both Germany.
Company Profile
Lam Capital invests in innovative companies that are addressing some of today’s most challenging, high-impact problems. From semiconductor subsystems to AI chips and Industry 4.0 technologies, we invest in and partner with startups that are disrupting their respective industries.
Moderator
Walter Liu
Applied Ventures
Walter Liu is a Principal at Applied Ventures. As a passionate investor and value creator for his entire career, Walter has led both strategic and financial venture investments for multi-international technology corporations since 2016. His venture capital investments have spanned across AI, semiconductors, cloud, mobile, automotive, IoT and enterprise software. Before joining Applied Ventures, Walter was the Head of US investment at MediaTek Capital. Prior to transitioning into venture capital, Walter was a senior strategic marketing manager at Qualcomm and a wireless product manager at Huawei and Nokia. He also has seven years of ASIC application and system engineering experience at Qualcomm, Motorola and LCC International, where he designed AT&T’s 3G network in Los Angeles and supported base station OEMs to deploy 3G networks around the world. Walter has an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from Cornell University and an M.S. in electrical engineering from UCLA.
Company Profile
Applied Ventures, LLC, is the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, Inc., (NASDAQ: AMAT). Applied Materials is the global leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world. For more than a decade, Applied Ventures has invested in startups that are pioneering innovations in smartphones, augmented and virtual reality, AI, driverless cars, big data, life sciences, 3D printing, robotics, cleantech, and advanced materials. Applied Ventures is stage agnostic and invests up to $100M per year globally. We have invested in over 90 companies across 18 countries.
Moderator
Laura Swan
Silicon Catalyst Ventures
Laura is in charge of portfolio company management at SCV. Laura is a Managing Partner with Silicon Catalyst and the Vice President of Operations for Silicon Catalyst Angels as well as an investor with Sand Hill Angels and a founding partner of The Batchery, a tech incubator in Berkeley California.
Laura earned her Master Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wyoming (Go Pokes!).
Company Profile
Silicon Catalyst Ventures was formed as an extension of Silicon Catalyst, the world’s only incubator + accelerator focused on semiconductor solutions, including Photonics, MEMS, sensors, IP, materials and Life Science. It was formed primarily, but not exclusively, to fund and foster Silicon Catalyst Portfolio Companies. This close association between the Venture Fund and the Silicon Catalyst incubator affords investors unique access to entrepreneurial teams whose technology and businesses are accelerated and de-risked throughout a rigorous screening process and two year incubation.
Panelist
Mahyar Khosravi, P.Eng
Nitride Global
As Chairman and CEO, Mahyar oversees strategy and execution, while facilitating relationships and partnerships for Nitride Global. Over the past 20 years, he has worked with several companies of various sizes on technology strategy and engineering processes, utilizing emerging technologies to create automation and efficiencies. Through these roles, Mahyar has had the opportunity to work with sector leading companies such as Shell, Exxon Mobil, Rio Tinto, Saudi Aramco, Keppel, FANUC, Daimler, and BMW, amongst many others. In addition to his role at Nitride, Mahyar also currently serves as an advisor and board member to a number of companies, including Pocket Pills, The Pyure Company, Garmentier, and Dianomix.
Nitride Global
Company Profile
Nitride Global Inc. is an early growth-stage company that has commercialized high volume processes to produce nitride substrates and nitride coatings. NSI’s substrates are enabling UVC light-emitting devices and detectors, as well as piezoelectric devices and high-speed communications chips. Its thin aluminum oxynitride coatings on copper and aluminum provide high-voltage insulation together with a 80x reduction in thermal resistance for electronic packaging.
Panelist
Farrokh Ayazi, Ph.D.
StethX Microsystems
Farrokh Ayazi is the Founder and CEO of StethX Microsystems, a spin-off of the Georgia Tech Integrated MEMS Laboratory that is commercializing advanced wearable patches for cardiopulmonary applications. He received the B.S. degree from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 1994, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1997 and 2000, respectively, all in electrical engineering. Dr. Ayazi is the Regents Entrepreneur and Ken Byers Professor in Microsystems at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where his main research interest lies in the area of integrated Micro/Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS and NEMS), with a focus on high-Q acoustic resonators and advanced inertial sensors. Dr. Ayazi was the co-founder and CTO of Qualtré, a spin-out of his research laboratory that commercialized bulk acoustic wave silicon gyroscopes for high precision applications, which was acquired by Panasonic in 2016. Dr. Ayazi is a fellow of the IEEE, has authored over 300 refereed technical and scientific articles, and holds more than 60 patents. He was the general chair of the IEEE Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems conference in 2014, held in San Francisco, CA.
StethX Microsystems
Company Profile
StethX is a start-up company located in Atlanta, GA commercializing a proprietary wearable sensor technology that enables remote and long-term monitoring of cardio-pulmonary conditions with high fidelity.
Panelist
Coralie Gallis Ph.D.
SM24
Coralie, a PhD in Materials Sciences from Paris University with an engineering degree in Physic- Chemistry, has over 25 years of experience in wearable sensing, medical and sports technology, semiconductors, and automotive industries. Previously in Silicon Valley and now in Las Vegas, Coralie has led business development and strategic partnerships in AI, biomedical tech, and wearable electronics. She is a co-founder and CTO of SM24, a wearable start-up, a non-invasive continuous biomarker monitoring system for metabolic health for the femtech, wellness and sport sector. Previous to the creation of the start-up, Coralie has been working in consumer technology industry within 2 different European semiconductors research centers dedicated to developing prototypes for industry partners. She has been a judge for the CES innovation awards the last 2 years. Since 2024, Coralie has also supported Vibra-Nova’s ultrasonic haptic technology expansion in the U.S.
SM24
Company Profile
SM24’s mission is to improve health and wellness while educating users in how to maintain good metabolic health and staying healthy.
Company Products & Services
SM24 is developing a wearable device, “patchable”, containing built-in multi sensors that monitor the level of glucose and, lactate within the sweat. These levels combined together with the activity will determine the metabolic usage of the person, whether that person consumes carb or fat to fuel.
Panelist
Seena Partokia
Cenfire Corporation
Seena Partokia is the founder and CEO of Cenfire, a next-generation MEMS switch company spun out of Atomica. Cenfire recently closed its Seed round and is now raising a Series A to scale commercialization of its solid-state switching platform, which combines ultra-low power consumption, high reliability, and fast switching speeds for demanding applications across automotive, defense, aerospace, and energy storage.
A lifelong obsession with transistors and switches has defined Seena’s path. He began his career working on RF switches using Silicon-on-Sapphire (SOS) and Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technologies, where he gained a deep understanding of device physics and analog performance. He then transitioned into the power semiconductor space, working on high-voltage devices and system-level reliability challenges. That journey led him to Menlo Micro, a MEMS relay company that raised over $230 million, where he contributed to product development and commercialization of MEMS switching technologies.
Throughout his career, Seena has worked exclusively on switches — from RF to power to MEMS — building deep expertise in device design, process integration, and go-to-market strategy. With Cenfire, he’s bringing those experiences together to develop a scalable, robust switching platform designed to replace incumbent relays across industries where size, weight, speed, and reliability matter most.
Cenfire Corporation
Company Profile
Cenfire is unlocking a new era of MEMS switching with an all-silicon platform that leverages the same scalable, proven infrastructure that has powered the semiconductor industry for decades. Built entirely on standard silicon, the technology delivers high-voltage handling, low-loss operation, and fast switching performance comparable to electromechanical relays—without relying on esoteric material sets, exotic fabrication processes, or unscalable design philosophies. Rather than attempting to fabricate complex structures from rare materials, Cenfire uses the most abundant, cost-effective, and industrially mature material on Earth to address the toughest switching challenges in power and signal electronics.
The company’s MEMS relay platform is based on a modular unit cell architecture that can be arrayed in series or parallel to support a wide range of voltage and current requirements. This architecture enables precise, application-specific optimization—combining the speed and longevity of solid-state switches with the galvanic isolation and power-handling capabilities of mechanical relays. Cenfire’s silicon-based MEMS switches are orders of magnitude smaller and faster than traditional relays, with dramatically reduced power consumption and footprint—ideal for compact, high-performance systems.
From aerospace and defense to electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and high-efficiency power converters, Cenfire delivers chip-scale switching performance to markets long limited by the size, speed, and inefficiencies of legacy relay technologies. Like every transformative hardware platform before it, this is the future of switching—built on silicon, again.
Panelist
Aftab Farooqi, Ph.D.
ChipHub
Aftab is the founder and CEO of ChipHub, an AI enabled semiconductor SaaS procurement platform for the hardware industry. ChipHub is Aftab’s second start-up. He was the founder and CEO of SiliconXpress, an IC design firm in 2008. Aftab began his career as an IC designer in the late 1980’s and has held a variety of both technical and commercial leadership roles including the last 12 years in semiconductor sourcing at Google and Amazon. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering (VLSI design) from Texas Tech University.
ChipHub
Company Profile
Panelist
Cris Ugolini, Ph.D.
Alithia Power
Since grad school, Cris has been developing and commercializing III-N materials and devices. From all levels of business, he is an experienced and proven expert in innovating products for both large and small enterprises. Starting with the LED revolution at CREE, UVC LEDS and substrates at Nitride Solutions, and GaN-based power electronics at Kyma, Cris is a proven expert in developing and innovating most applications that III-N materials have to offer. He has two undergraduate degrees in math and physics from Bethany college, and a Ph.D in materials science at Kansas State University.
Alithia Power
Company Profile
Alithia Power inc. (API) is a seed-stage company in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Founded in January of 2023, API aims to be a high-volume manufacturer of vertical GaN power electronics for segments of the electrification market like electric vehicles, industrial motors, data rooms, renewable energy, and the SMART grid. Our products are branded as vertiGANTM.
