Umesh Mishra's Company, Transphorm, Funded by KKR & Co.

Transphorm USA has been featured in Wall Street Journal for being funded $70 million by KKR & Co. TMP Affiliate Faculty Member, Umesh Mishra, is co-founder and chairman of Transphorm USA.  

"A material used to make power-saving light bulbs is gaining momentum in the world of semiconductors. KKR & Co. is the latest to place a bet. The big private-equity firm, known mainly for funneling money from other investors into buyouts of established companies, plans to announce Monday that it is using its own money to lead a $70 million funding round for the startup Transphorm Inc…Umesh Mishra, Transphorm’s chairman and co-founder, estimates that 10% of all power used in the U.S. stems from losses during power conversion in electric motors and other products. Shifting entirely to gallium-nitride technology could save $20 billion annually in the country, his company estimates…Mr. Mishra doubles as a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, a longtime center for gallium-nitride research. His colleagues there include Shuji Nakamura, who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in perfecting the use of the material in lighting."

"Energy-Saving Material Gets a Boost" by Don Clark

June 22, 2015, Wall Street Journal