K1 Semiconductor, Inc.

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Industry: Semiconductor Manufacturing

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Joseph McDonald (Chicago Booth MBA`25) and Muhammad Hashaam Asif (Chicago Booth MBA`26)

PhD Founders: Connor Horn, Xella Doi, and Sagar Kumar Seth

Brief Description of Solution: The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point, with Moore’s Law slowing and next-generation technologies requiring materials that can handle extreme heat, voltage, and radiation,

K1 Semiconductor engineers high-performance compound semiconductors, enhancing the efficiency and economics of advanced chip manufacturing. Our breakthrough semiconductor wafer splitting (spalling) platform technology allows for reuse of advanced, expensive semiconductor wafers up to 20 times, while also delivering a generational 20% performance gain. This enables the adoption of the much-needed, non-silicon compound semiconductors in power electronics, photonics, and integrated optics, powering the future of mobility, clean energy, industrial automation, defense, and AI infrastructure.

Funding Dollars: $1.6M

What led you to launch this venture? Demand for next-generation semiconductors is skyrocketing as they become essential for mobility, AI infrastructure, energy systems, defense, and advanced communications. Meanwhile, supply is constrained by outdated, wasteful wafer manufacturing. This makes advanced substrates costly, scarce, and heavily dependent on foreign sources, posing economic and national security risks. We launched K1 Semiconductor to directly address this growing gap and imbalance in the market.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Since incorporation in March 2025, we’ve continued to grow and hit new milestones. Some of them include:

* Corporate engagement with major industry players in the U.S. and East Asia. We are working with a NASDAQ-100 semiconductor company and multi-billion-dollar wafer and chip manufacturers, as well as several specialized players, who are actively testing our technology through pilots and material evaluations. Their willingness to collaborate at this early stage serves as strong validation of the technical significance and commercial potential of our platform technology.

* Winning 2nd place at Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge, securing $668K in investment, including the $25K Moonshot Prize for catalyzing innovative solutions to global challenges and winning 2nd place at the Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge at TechChicago Capital Summit by P33, receiving $50K in funding and $50K in in-kind services.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? The biggest challenge has been building the right team and culture. In the early stages, we had a strong idea and deep technical foundations, but not yet the right mix of people to execute together. Finding individuals who not only had the expertise but also shared the same vision, urgency, and mission took time – it meant many difficult conversations, sleepless nights, mismatches, and a lot of patience. But gradually, the right team members came together – members motivated by the problem, committed to solving it collaboratively, and invested in each other’s growth. Looking back, that challenge shaped our greatest strength: a core team that truly complements and supports one another while standing by each other through thick and thin.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? Chicago Booth has helped our startup immensely through three key pillars: the coursework, the community, and the capital. The entrepreneurship coursework sharpened our business, financial, and commercialization strategy. The Booth and UChicago community have consistently connected us to mentors, founders, industry leaders, and partners — opening doors wherever we go. And through the New Venture Challenge, Polsky Center, and Booth’s investor network, we’ve gained access to early-stage funding pathways that have accelerated our growth.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it?  New Venture Challenge taught by Mark Tebbe and Steve Kaplan. From learning that a “business plan is a living breathing document” to “cash is more important than your mother”, there have been countless, timeless lessons from the class. Most importantly, it taught us that customer discovery, and real validation matter far more than theoretical models and that we need to be able to convey it to all stakeholders in a digestible manner while showing traction. The class shifted our thinking from building technology in a vacuum to building solutions driven by customer pain and market pull.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Samir Mayekar has made and continues to make a significant contribution. Our company was actually started in a class he taught, Building the New Venture. From teaching us the fundamentals of entrepreneurship as someone who lived and breathed it to advising us and connecting us with people half way across the world, Samir has played a pivotal role in helping us build K1 Semiconductor and we are incredibly grateful to him.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success?

We wouldn’t be here without the Chicago and Midwest entrepreneurship ecosystem powered by the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, and the Polsky Center. They have been instrumental, helping us refine our technology roadmap, secure intellectual property, access capital as well as world-class incubation space and lab facilities, connect with industry partners, and tap into a network of experienced founders and operators. Beyond campus, the broader Midwest deep-tech and semiconductor community has been collaborative and supportive, accelerating our development and positioning K1 for long-term success.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? The goal is to continue to build as we firmly believe the world’s progress now hinges on materials that can do what silicon no longer can. This is why we are committed to developing the enabling technology infrastructure to power the next wave of global innovation, helping the U.S. achieve economic and national security.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? We wish we had known how emotionally nonlinear the entrepreneurial journey would be – and how critical perseverance truly is. The highs can be euphoric, and the lows can feel existential. We’ve learned that resilience isn’t the absence of doubt, but the ability to continue moving forward despite uncertainty.

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