Australia: National Reconstruction Fund Corporation takes AUD 35 million equity stake in Morse Micro Wi-Fi HaLow semiconductor manufacturer

Mechanism

NRFC — the AUD 15 billion Commonwealth financing vehicle established to rebuild sovereign industrial capability — took a AUD 35 million minority equity position inside Morse Micro's AUD 88 million Series C funding round, announced 23 September 2025. Morse Micro designs Wi-Fi HaLow chipsets, a long-range, low-power Wi-Fi standard aimed at IoT applications (smart building, agriculture, security-camera and sensor connectivity) that extends range well beyond conventional Wi-Fi while consuming a fraction of the power. The company employs over 130 staff across Sydney and its design/production hub in Picton, regional NSW, and is described by NRFC as Australia's largest semiconductor manufacturer.

The round was led by MegaChips, a Japanese semiconductor design house, alongside existing investors Blackbird, Main Sequence, Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull, and superannuation funds Hostplus, NGS and UniSuper. NRFC's stated rationale is to ensure next-generation Wi-Fi technology is developed and commercialised onshore, strengthen sovereign semiconductor manufacturing capability, and diversify the Australian economy away from resource-extraction dependence — the same strategic-tech-onshoring logic NRFC has applied to prior investments (Synchron brain-computer interfaces, Intellihub smart meters, Arnott's Group manufacturing refinancing).

Downstream implications

• Extends NRFC's pattern (alongside 2025-11-07-australia-nrfc-synchron-equity-investment,

2025-12-02-australia-nrfc-intellihub-smart-meter-loan, and 2025-12-08-australia-nrfc-arnotts-group-refinancing) of taking minority equity positions inside externally-led financing rounds for scaling Australian-founded companies, this time in domestic semiconductor design/manufacturing rather than a foreign-domiciled company.

• A foreign lead investor (MegaChips, Japan) co-investing alongside a sovereign fund in a

semiconductor company is a notable structure — signals NRFC is comfortable syndicating strategic-tech bets with allied-country private capital rather than insisting on Australian-only cap tables.

Open questions

• No public disclosure of board or governance rights NRFC holds as a minority investor.
• Unclear what share of the AUD 88 million round is earmarked specifically for the Picton

production facility versus general R&D/commercialisation spend.