Vertical Horizons

MIT, Sloan School of Management

Industry: Energy / Semiconductor / AI

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Cynthia Liao, MBA Class of 2024, CEO & Co-Founder
(Team members: CTO & Co-Founder Dr Joshua Perozek and Chief Advisor & Co-Founder MIT Professor Tomas Palacios.)

Brief Description of Solution: Vertical Horizons is commercializing high-density, high-efficiency power supply for AI computing. Our enabling technology is a wide bandgap semiconductor, vertical gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors, spun out of MIT. It unlocks 50% higher power density, reduces losses by 30%, and improves thermal management and fast switching capabilities that are responsive to load surges from AI chips. The core technology has applications across the power sector, including EV, grid and renewables, industrial power, electric air, defense, and beyond.

Funding Dollars: $25K in non-dilutive funding from MIT, $4M in research grant funding for developing the technology at MIT.

What led you to launch this venture? Prior to coming to business school, I worked across climate and energy in the private (investing) and public (climate diplomacy) sector. I came to MIT Sloan with the intention of continuing to make an impact on climate change, but through adopting an entrepreneurial and technological approach. I was deeply curious about what breakthrough innovations might be able to significantly impact the trajectory of climate change and I was fortunate to meet my co-founders and other researchers through MIT’s Innovation Teams (i-Teams) course. It all initially started as a school project focused on exploring the potential applications for vertical gallium nitride power transistors. Once I understood the immense impact that this innovation could have to decarbonize and improve efficiency across our energy sector, I was inspired to continue building the venture after the class ended. Through MIT pitch competitions, including the MIT Climate & Energy Prize and the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, we were able to receive helpful industry feedback as well as some prize money. This created the momentum to launch Vertical Horizons. This is when we decided to launch Vertical Horizons.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Building the team. When we first started, my co-founder had a job offer upon graduation and was uncertain that launching a deeptech startup was what he wanted to pursue. Through the process of working together and further exploring and understanding the industry pain point and its opportunities, he became a lot more convinced about embarking on this entrepreneurial journey together.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? One challenge of developing a deeptech company was beginning early customer engagement without yet having a product to deliver. There are very helpful platforms for contextualizing the conversation. For example, we participated in the NSF Regional I-Corp Program for SEMICON, which allowed us to meet customers in person at a conference with the support of the National Science Foundation. We were thus able to frame our early customer discovery conversations as research. These conversations allowed us to share our startup idea, which eventually progressed to commercial partnership discussions.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? I pursued the mid-career MIT Sloan Fellows MBA program, which is the reason I am on this entrepreneurial journey now. The program was the perfect launching pad from which to learn, explore, and build. I benefitted from participating in MIT’s i-Teams course where I initiated work on the venture along with other classes that were relevant for founding a climate tech company. Being surrounded by a supportive ecosystem of builders and innovators and having a strong support group of friends and classmates to cheer each other on during the highs and lows made all the difference. This included high-impact classes that were directly relevant for founding a climate tech company, being surrounded by a supportive ecosystem of builders and innovators, and having a strong support group of friends and classmates to cheer each other on during the highs and lows.

Also, a huge shout out to the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, which has provided incredible resources and mentorship for us in the early days of our journey.

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Jane Chen is also a recent MBA graduate from MIT Sloan who started her company Stepwise upon graduating from MIT Sloan. Stepwise is Jane’s second company that she launched while pursuing her MBA. Her grit, resilience, and dedication to her entrepreneurial journey allowed her to overcome many obstacles to launching Stepwise. I was truly inspired by her.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? The most valuable class I took at MIT was iTeams taught by  Dr. Luis Perez-Breva. This class is designed to pair students from across the Institute to explore potential applications and business models for the technology through lab participation and faculty research. It was in this class that I met Sharon Hsia and Minsik Oh, two brilliant PhD students, and together we started to explore the applications for the technology. What I really appreciated about Dr. Perez-Breva’s approach is that he encouraged us to not to stop after the first application. Given that many of the innovations are based on very fundamental research from MIT labs and were tech-driven as opposed to market-driven, the applications, business models and potential for impact were innumerable. He encouraged us not to stop at the first answer, to continue to generate ideas, explore the market further, and develop a framework for comparison.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? As mentioned, our company wouldn’t exist without Dr. Perez-Breva. Dr. Tomas Palacios, my co-founder and head of the MIT Palacios Group, served as an adviser during the early exploration of this venture and is now a huge source of support and advice. Additionally, Professor of the Practice Bill Aulet and the entire MIT delta v team has been critical to launching this venture.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Being situated in Cambridge has been a wonderful ecosystem for nurturing Vertical Horizons. The Cambridge/Boston startup ecosystem has been hugely supportive and collaborative. We have been able to build relationships with wonderful mentors who have made critical early introductions to help us better understand the market. A big shout out to David Cohen-Tanugi and Proto Venture Studio, which provided a platform of support and mentorship in the early days.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? My goal is to lead Vertical Horizons in disrupting the power industry with cleaner and more efficient power electronics solutions, starting with data center power. Through a portfolio strategy of developing products and direct chip partnerships, we plan to be the go-to power solutions provider across data centers, grids and renewables, electric vehicles and broader e-mobility.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture?  One thing I’ve learned through this experience is to not worry about the doors that are closed and appreciate and seize the opportunities that are open. It has been immensely helpful to be creative and patient, to see opportunities, solutions, and paths. There will be setbacks along the way but the ability to be flexible is one of the most important ways to keep moving forward.

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