Lace lithographyBuilt by the University of Bergen physicist, it uses a beam the width of a single hydrogen atom to etch chip features up to ten times smaller than current extreme ultraviolet lithography can achieve. Atomico led Series A, which also included Microsoft’s M12.
The chip industry’s most valuable piece of equipment is a machine most people have never heard of. ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography system, the tool used to etch the world’s most advanced chips, uses light with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers to draw the circuits that support a modern artificial intelligence device.
The price of one car is more than 350 million dollars. There is no meaningful alternative and ASML has a near monopoly on the most advanced systems. A Norwegian startup called Lace attracted 40 million dollars believing he had found it.
Headquartered in Bergen and founded in July 2023 by physicist Bodil Holst and his former PhD student Adria Salvador Palau, Lace uses a beam of helium atoms rather than light to etch chip patterns.
The beam is about 0.1 nanometers wide, about the width of a hydrogen atom, and about 135 times thinner than ASML’s EUV light. If the technology can be made to work at production scale, the practical result is chip features up to ten times smaller than what current lithography allows: transistors and other structures that Holst describes as “the ultimate atomic solution.”
It led a $40 million Series A round AtomA European venture firm with participation from Microsoft’s M12 venture arm, Linse Capital, Norwegian state-owned climate investment company Nysnø and the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation.
The company has already developed prototype systems and is aiming for a test tool in a pilot chip manufacturing plant, or fab, in 2029. He presented his research results at the scientific lithography summit held in February 2026.
Bodil Holst’s background is unusual for a startup founder in this space. He is a Danish-Norwegian physicist who joined the University of Bergen in 2007 and has built his research career on nanoscale imaging, molecular beam lithography and 2D materials. He holds an adjunct professorship there while serving as CEO.
Lace’s CTO, Adria Salvador Palau, completed her PhD in Bergen and currently operates from Barcelona. The company’s pre-Series A investors include the European Innovation Council and Innovasjon Norge, Norway’s national innovation agency.
Timing is thought of as technology. Governments and investors are spending to diversify the semiconductor supply chain driven by geopolitical exposure and AI demand.
Lace enters a market where ASML’s position is structurally dominant but politically vulnerable: Dutch export controls on EUV machines to China have made chip lithography a flashpoint in the broader technology competition between the US and China.
A viable alternative to EUV, even a decade away from commercial deployment, has strategic importance far outweighing its near-term revenue potential. The inclusion of a European VC, a Norwegian sovereign fund, and a Spanish government investor in the Series A show that Lace is backed by its commercial trajectory as well as its geopolitical optionality.
