AirMembrane

Commercializing graphene and 2D materials for EUV pellicles and other advanced applications.

Website: https://www.airmembrane.co.jp/en/

Cover Block

Public sources

Field	Value
Name	AirMembrane
Tagline	Commercializing graphene and 2D materials for EUV pellicles and other advanced applications.
Headquarters	Tsukuba, Japan [airmembrane.co.jp]
Founded	2017 [airmembrane.co.jp]
Stage	Seed [crunchbase.com]
Business Model	B2B
Industry	Deeptech
Technology	Hardware
Geography	East Asia
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Academic Spinout [nedo.go.jp]
Funding Label	Seed
Total Disclosed	¥950 million [AirMembrane, August 2024] [Global Brain, October 2026]

Executive Summary

PUBLIC AirMembrane is a Tsukuba-based deeptech company building graphene EUV pellicles for semiconductor lithography, and it merits investor attention now because it has moved from research-origin story into externally funded manufacturing preparation, including an ¥850 million financing announced in October 2026 [Global Brain, October 2026] [NEDO]. Founded in 2017 as an AIST-origin spinout, the company traces back to graphene research by founder Yoshinori Koga, with the technical and commercialization arc later carried forward alongside co-founder Masataka Hasegawa, who became President and CEO in June 2024 [AirMembrane] [NEDO] [AirMembrane, June 2024].

The core bet is narrow but significant: AirMembrane is developing multi-layer graphene EUV pellicles, which sit in front of photomasks in advanced lithography, and it argues that proprietary continuous synthesis and automated transfer processes are the route from lab-grade graphene to manufacturable, durable membranes [NEDO] [Global Brain]. Public materials also show a broader product surface, including graphene TEM grids and a graphene FET chip, but the investor case is centered on whether the pellicle program can reach pilot and then mass-production readiness rather than on these earlier tools products [AirMembrane] [Global Brain, October 2026].

The team reads like an academic spinout that has started to add commercial operating structure. Koga's background as a former AIST researcher is directly tied to the underlying materials science, while Hasegawa has been presented as the executive leading manufacturing and commercialization, a useful division of labor for a hardware-intensive company where process scale-up is the core risk [NEDO] [AIP Advances, September 2022].

Funding appears to be building in steps rather than all at once. AirMembrane disclosed a ¥100 million seed round in August 2024, later coverage said the company had raised ¥150 million in total between August 2024 and May 2025, and Global Brain announced a further ¥850 million round in October 2026; the company is B2B, and the disclosed use of proceeds points to manufacturing capability, hiring, and pilot-line preparation rather than immediate commercial scale [AirMembrane, August 2024] [GrowthStock, May 2026] [Global Brain, October 2026].

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the main things to watch are straightforward: evidence of named semiconductor ecosystem partners or customers, proof that pilot production is translating into repeatable yields, and any independent validation that AirMembrane's graphene pellicles can meet the transmission and durability thresholds implied by its positioning [NEDO] [Global Brain]. The public record is still thin outside company, investor, and program materials, so the opportunity looks real but remains more process-risk and execution-risk driven than commercially de-risked at this stage [GrowthStock, May 2026].

Company-stated, unverified -- This section relies materially on company, investor, and NEDO materials, with limited independent corroboration from GrowthStock and AIP Advances.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Seed
Business Model	B2B
Industry / Vertical	Deeptech
Technology Type	Hardware
Geography	East Asia
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Academic Spinout
Funding	Seed

How the Company Got Here

PUBLIC AirMembrane traces back to a specific research lineage rather than a broad materials pitch. The company says it was founded in July 2017 in Tsukuba, Japan, to commercialize graphene and other two-dimensional materials, and its public materials tie that origin directly to research conducted at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, or AIST [airmembrane.co.jp] [crunchbase.com]. The same company history notes that it was recognized as an AIST start-up in October 2017, which helps explain why the business still presents itself as an academic spinout with a manufacturing problem to solve rather than a pure component reseller [airmembrane.co.jp].

The chronology that is visible in public sources is narrow but coherent. AirMembrane’s website positions the company around synthesis, research and development, production, and sales of graphene and related materials, while later public updates show a shift toward graphene EUV pellicles as the lead commercialization program [airmembrane.co.jp]. Crunchbase and the company site both place the headquarters in Tsukuba, and the company’s more recent announcements show an increasingly formal capital formation path, including a ¥100 million seed round announced in August 2024 and a further financing announced in June 2025, followed by an ¥850 million raise announced in October 2026 [crunchbase.com] [airmembrane.co.jp, August 2024] [airmembrane.co.jp, June 2025] [airmembrane.co.jp, October 2026].

Leadership also appears to have matured alongside that financing timeline. The company announced in June 2024 that co-founder Masataka Hasegawa became President and CEO, while founder Yoshinori Koga remains closely associated with the underlying graphene research base from which the company emerged [airmembrane.co.jp, June 2024] [airmembrane.co.jp]. On the public record, that leaves AirMembrane looking like a seven-plus-year deep-tech venture that spent its early life proving transfer and materials-processing capability, then began raising larger rounds once the pellicle manufacturing thesis became central to the story [airmembrane.co.jp, March 2021] [airmembrane.co.jp, October 2026].

Lightly corroborated -- Confirmed primarily by the company website, with partial corroboration from Crunchbase.

Product and Technology

MIXED AirMembrane is positioning the company around one technically narrow, commercially consequential problem: making graphene usable as an EUV pellicle for semiconductor lithography, rather than as a lab material with limited manufacturing yield [airmembrane.co.jp] [nedo.go.jp] [Global Brain, October 2026]. Public materials describe its core product as an ultra-high-transmittance, highly durable EUV pellicle built with multi-layer graphene, with the underlying differentiation resting on continuous synthesis and automated-transfer processes that the company and investors say are intended to support mass production [nedo.go.jp] [Global Brain, October 2026]. That matters because the available public record supports a manufacturing thesis more than a broad platform thesis: the company is not simply stating that graphene has attractive physical properties, it is stating that it has developed a repeatable transfer process suitable for production-oriented pellicle fabrication [airmembrane.co.jp, March 2021] [Global Brain, October 2026].

The rest of the portfolio reads as adjacent proof points rather than equal commercial pillars, at least from the sources reviewed. AirMembrane also lists graphene TEM grids for transmission electron microscopy, a UV Hydrophilization Unit called TEMUV21-2 for preparing bilayer graphene TEM grids for cryo-TEM observation, and a Graphene FET chip FR01 for sensor development and electrical characterization of graphene [airmembrane.co.jp]. Those offerings suggest the company has worked across both materials processing and device-enablement workflows, but the public evidence does not establish which products are generating commercial demand today or how far the EUV pellicle has progressed with named semiconductor customers [airmembrane.co.jp] [nedo.go.jp].

The technical record is early but directionally coherent. NEDO lists a 2025 to 2027 research theme for graphene EUV pellicles with a project amount of 5293 million, which provides some external support that the work is tied to a formal development program rather than website copy alone [nedo.go.jp]. A 2022 AIP Advances paper co-authored by founder Yoshinori Koga and CEO Masataka Hasegawa on fabrication of multi-layer graphene by repeated transfer does not validate product readiness on its own, but it does line up with the transfer-based manufacturing approach the company now emphasizes in commercialization materials [AIP Advances, September 2022] [nedo.go.jp].

Company-stated, unverified -- Product descriptions rely heavily on company and investor materials, with partial external support from NEDO and AIP Advances for the underlying technical direction.

Where the Demand Sits

Public sources The market matters now because AirMembrane is trying to sell into a chokepoint of advanced chip manufacturing, where a single materials improvement can matter if it clears qualification and scale hurdles [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026].

The public record does not provide a named third-party TAM for graphene EUV pellicles specifically, and that gap is material because the addressable market depends less on graphene in the abstract than on adoption inside the EUV lithography stack [NEDO] [airmembrane.co.jp]. What is visible is the application boundary. NEDO describes AirMembrane's target product as an ultra-high-transmittance, highly durable EUV pellicle for semiconductor lithography, while Global Brain frames the company's wedge as mass production of high-quality graphene pellicles through continuous synthesis and automated transfer processes [NEDO] [Global Brain]. That places the relevant market closer to specialty semiconductor materials and lithography consumables than to the broader graphene materials market, an important distinction because buyer qualification cycles, yield sensitivity, and production-line integration tend to govern demand in this category [NEDO] [Global Brain].

The immediate demand driver is the semiconductor industry's need to protect EUV lithography masks without sacrificing optical performance, according to the company's public materials and NEDO's startup profile [NEDO] [airmembrane.co.jp]. AirMembrane's claim is that multilayer graphene can offer the combination of transmittance and durability needed for EUV pellicles, and its 2025 to 2027 NEDO-backed research theme suggests that Japanese public-sector funding sees this as commercially relevant enough to support continued development [NEDO]. The October 2026 financing announcement also ties capital use directly to pilot production and mass-production preparation, which implies that the gating issue is not category creation alone but manufacturability at repeatable quality [Global Brain, October 2026].

Adjacent markets help explain why the company has more than one surface area, even if the pellicle program is the main strategic bet. AirMembrane also markets graphene TEM grids, a UV hydrophilization unit for cryo-TEM workflows, and a graphene FET chip for sensor development and electrical characterization, all according to the company website [airmembrane.co.jp]. Those products sit in research tools and advanced materials instrumentation rather than semiconductor production equipment, but they matter as evidence that the company is positioning graphene processing know-how across multiple end uses while the EUV opportunity matures [airmembrane.co.jp] [GrowthStock, May 2026].

Macro and policy support are visible, though still early. AirMembrane says it was selected for Ibaraki Prefecture's FY2026 Advanced Technology Commercialization Promotion Subsidy and the FY2026 Growth Program for Deep-Tech Venture Companies, while NEDO lists a ¥293 million project amount tied to its 2025 to 2027 graphene EUV pellicle theme [airmembrane.co.jp, July 2026] [NEDO]. Those signals do not prove customer pull, but they do indicate a domestic policy environment in Japan that is willing to fund strategic materials commercialization linked to semiconductor manufacturing. The constraint is that public evidence for commercial adoption remains thin, so the market case rests more on strategic relevance and process feasibility than on verified deployments today [GrowthStock, May 2026] [NEDO].

Market lens	What public sources support	Source quality
Core target market	EUV pellicles for semiconductor lithography	NEDO startup profile and company materials [NEDO] [airmembrane.co.jp]
Adjacent market	Graphene TEM grids and cryo-TEM workflow tools	Company materials [airmembrane.co.jp]
Adjacent market	Graphene FET chips for sensor development and characterization	Company materials [airmembrane.co.jp]
Policy-supported R&D	2025 to 2027 NEDO research theme, ¥293 million project amount	Public-sector source, partial market signal [NEDO]

The table shows a market story defined by application specificity rather than broad category sizing. For investors, that usually means diligence should focus on qualification path, manufacturing repeatability, and the size of the pellicle bottleneck inside EUV workflows, not on headline graphene market forecasts that public sources here do not substantiate.

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on NEDO, Global Brain, GrowthStock, and company materials, but it lacks independent third-party market sizing for graphene EUV pellicles.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED AirMembrane sits in a narrow but consequential part of the advanced-materials stack, where the comparison is less with broad graphene vendors than with whichever company can turn fragile lab processes into repeatable supply for semiconductor-adjacent buyers [airmembrane.co.jp] [nedo.go.jp].

Company	Positioning	Stage / Funding	Notable Differentiator	Source
AirMembrane	Graphene and 2D-materials startup focused on EUV pellicles and related products such as TEM grids and a graphene FET chip	Seed; ¥100 million announced in August 2024, ¥850 million announced in October 2026	Focus on multi-layer graphene EUV pellicles, with proprietary continuous synthesis and automated-transfer processes tied to AIST-origin research	[airmembrane.co.jp, August 2024] [Global Brain, October 2026] [nedo.go.jp, Unknown]
Meijo Nano Carbon Co., Ltd.	Named competitor in graphene materials	Not established in the reviewed public materials	Public materials reviewed for this section identify it by name, but do not substantiate product overlap or financing details	[Structured facts]
ExtenD Inc.	Named competitor in adjacent advanced-materials or deep-tech tooling	Not established in the reviewed public materials	Public materials reviewed for this section identify it by name, but do not substantiate product overlap or financing details	[Structured facts]
Incubation Alliance Inc.	Named competitor in adjacent advanced-materials or commercialization pathways	Not established in the reviewed public materials	Public materials reviewed for this section identify it by name, but do not substantiate product overlap or financing details	[Structured facts]

The competitive map breaks into three layers. At the core are direct pellicle and advanced-material process challengers, where AirMembrane is attempting to differentiate on manufacturability rather than on graphene as a scientific concept alone [Global Brain] [nedo.go.jp]. Around that core sit adjacent graphene product suppliers, including TEM-grid and research-tool vendors, where AirMembrane already has public product surfaces but where those products appear to function more as proof of process competence than as the full strategic prize [airmembrane.co.jp] [pulse.growthstock.app, May 2026]. The outer layer is made up of substitutes, meaning incumbent semiconductor materials workflows that do not require AirMembrane's specific membrane architecture at all; those alternatives matter because a startup in this category does not merely need a better material, it needs a place inside a conservative manufacturing chain [nedo.go.jp].

AirMembrane's edge, on the public record, is technical lineage plus focused capital. The company traces back to AIST-origin graphene research, and both founders are tied to the underlying work on repeated transfer and multi-layer graphene fabrication, which gives the company a more credible claim on process know-how than a typical application-layer materials startup [nedo.go.jp] [AIP Advances, September 2022]. That edge is strengthened by dedicated project support, including a 2025 to 2027 NEDO research theme with a ¥293 million project amount, and by follow-on financing that Global Brain said is intended for pilot production and mass-production preparation [nedo.go.jp] [Global Brain, October 2026]. Still, the durability of that edge depends on whether the automated-transfer and continuous-synthesis claims translate into yields and qualification outcomes. If they do not, the edge is perishable, because process advantage in semiconductor materials tends to matter only once it survives customer validation [Global Brain] [airmembrane.co.jp, March 2021].

The exposure is also fairly clear. AirMembrane has limited independently verified evidence of commercial customer adoption, and the reviewed public sources do not name semiconductor customers or confirm production deployment of its EUV pellicles [nedo.go.jp] [pulse.growthstock.app, May 2026]. That leaves an opening for any competitor, named or unnamed, that reaches qualification with a toolmaker or materials incumbent first. go.jp]. AirMembrane does not yet appear to own distribution, and in a category this specialized, channel access can outrank technical novelty.

The most plausible 18-month scenario is that the field separates by execution discipline rather than by headline science. AirMembrane is the likely winner if its recent funding and NEDO-backed work convert into pilot-line proof points, because that would align its stated differentiator, manufacturing readiness, with the actual buying criteria of semiconductor-adjacent partners [Global Brain, October 2026] [nedo.go.jp]. The likely loser if qualification cycles stall is any smaller graphene challenger that remains visible mainly through company materials without independent customer validation; on the evidence available here, that risk applies to AirMembrane as much as to the named peer set, which is why competitive advantage should still be treated as emerging rather than established [airmembrane.co.jp] [pulse.growthstock.app, May 2026].

Opportunity

Upside case

PUBLIC The prize here is unusually large for a company of this size: if AirMembrane can move graphene EUV pellicles from lab-grade proof to repeatable manufacturing, it could become a critical supplier into one of the hardest bottlenecks in advanced semiconductor production, with adjacent credibility in other graphene-based components to follow [NEDO] [AirMembrane] [Global Brain, October 2026].

The headline opportunity is not that AirMembrane sells another advanced-materials component. It is that the company becomes a manufacturing bridge between graphene research and production semiconductor tooling, starting with EUV pellicles, where performance requirements are strict and viable suppliers are scarce by design [NEDO] [AirMembrane]. That outcome is still conditional, but it is not purely aspirational. Public sources show a seven-year operating history from a 2017 founding, roots in AIST research, a 2025 to 2027 NEDO-backed research theme for graphene EUV pellicles with a ¥293 million project amount, and new capital earmarked for pilot production and mass-production preparation [AirMembrane] [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026]. Those are the markers of a company trying to cross the hard part in deeptech, from material novelty to process control.

A second reason the upside is real is that AirMembrane's stated wedge is manufacturing, not only materials discovery. Both the company and Global Brain describe proprietary continuous synthesis and automated-transfer processes, while earlier company materials point to automated transfer technology for forming multilayer graphene [Global Brain] [AirMembrane, March 2021]. In semiconductor supply chains, process repeatability often matters more than a single standout sample. If AirMembrane can show consistent transmittance, durability, and throughput at pilot scale, it has a path to relevance that many materials startups never reach [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026].

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
EUV pellicle supplier of record	AirMembrane converts its graphene pellicle work into qualification with semiconductor lithography ecosystem partners and becomes a recurring supplier for advanced-node pellicle applications	Pilot-production readiness and manufacturing buildout funded by the October 2026 round [Global Brain, October 2026]	The company is already centered on graphene EUV pellicles, has a NEDO-listed 2025 to 2027 project on the theme, and raised ¥850 million for manufacturing capability and pilot-line preparation [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026]
Graphene process platform	The pellicle program validates AirMembrane's synthesis and transfer stack, which is then reused across other high-value graphene products such as TEM grids and sensor-development chips	Successful scale-up of continuous synthesis and automated transfer beyond one product family [AirMembrane] [Global Brain]	AirMembrane already sells or describes multiple graphene-based products, including TEM grids, a UV hydrophilization unit for cryo-TEM workflows, and a graphene FET chip FR01, suggesting the underlying know-how may be portable across formats [AirMembrane]
Strategic materials partner	AirMembrane becomes an acquisition or partnership target for a larger semiconductor materials or tooling player seeking graphene pellicle capability in-house	A category-tipping demonstration of manufacturable, durable multi-layer graphene pellicles [NEDO]	The company sits at the intersection of AIST-origin IP, NEDO-backed development, and a specific semiconductor pain point, which is the kind of profile that can attract strategic interest if technical milestones are met [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026]

The compounding mechanism, if it appears, would come from manufacturing learning rather than a classic software network effect. One successful pellicle qualification could improve yield learning, process automation, and customer trust, which in turn lowers the cost of proving the next product generation or adjacent graphene form factor [Global Brain] [AirMembrane, March 2021]. The public record already points in that direction: AirMembrane moved from automated graphene transfer work disclosed in 2021 to a 2022 publication on multi-layer graphene fabrication, then to more explicit EUV pellicle commercialization and pilot-line preparation by 2026 [AirMembrane, March 2021] [AIP Advances, September 2022] [Global Brain, October 2026]. That is not proof of commercial traction, but it does show a technical arc that could compound if manufacturing metrics improve.

The size of the win is best framed as strategic value rather than near-term revenue arithmetic, because public sources do not disclose customer contracts or unit economics. NEDO lists AirMembrane at a "Pre Series A" valuation of ¥1,000 million, although the profile does not establish the financing context and should be treated cautiously [NEDO]. Against that starting point, a credible upside case is that a qualified graphene pellicle supplier into advanced semiconductor manufacturing could be worth many multiples of that level, either as a standalone specialty-materials company or as a strategic asset to a larger ecosystem player (scenario, not a forecast) [NEDO] [Global Brain, October 2026]. The evidence on hand supports the existence of the technical program, the capital formation, and the manufacturing intent. It does not yet support precision on terminal value.

Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on NEDO, company materials, Global Brain's investment announcement, and AIP Advances. Core facts on funding and technical focus are corroborated in parts, but several product and manufacturing claims remain company or investor stated.

Sources