Redefining radio with software-defined silicon.

Founded:

2016

Tech

Semiconductors

Forward.one entry point:

Early-stage investor, scaled through growth rounds

Headquarters

Delft, The Netherlands

The Challenge

Modern devices depend on radio; navigation, connectivity, positioning, and timing. Yet today’s RF chips are still largely fixed-function, power-hungry, and vulnerable to interference, spoofing, and jamming. Each protocol requires its own optimized hardware, driving cost, complexity, and energy consumption.

This rigidity is increasingly misaligned with reality. Defense systems face hostile signal environments. Consumer and industrial devices demand longer battery life. And product cycles move faster than radio standards themselves.

Qualinx was founded to break this constraint by turning RF into a fully digital, reconfigurable capability.

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FORWARD.one involvement

We invested in Qualinx because it represents a step-change in semiconductor architecture, not an incremental improvement. Its proprietary Digital RF (DRF) platform enables chips to be reconfigured in real time, over the air, across the 30 MHz to 8 GHz spectrum, supporting protocols such as GNSS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and indoor positioning on a single architecture.

This is a perfect fit with our semiconductor focus: fabless, IP-driven, performance-led deeptech with clear commercial pull. The GNSS application alone is compelling; delivering 5–10× lower power consumption compared to incumbent solutions, while reducing system complexity and bill of materials.

Beyond capital, we support Qualinx with strategic positioning, scaling toward volume markets, and translating deep technical superiority into defensible commercial advantage.

Our DRF platform is set to become the new industry standard, leaving the competition miles behind.

Tom Trill

CEO

Semiconductor leadership is defined by architecture. Qualinx turns radio from fixed hardware into adaptive infrastructure, delivering superior performance, lower power consumption, and strategic resilience. This is the kind of silicon Europe needs to compete globally.

Results

Qualinx is building a new class of RF silicon:

5–10× energy efficiency gains, enabling dramatically longer battery life in wearables, trackers, and IoT devices.
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Real-time, over-the-air reconfigurability, providing resilience against jamming and spoofing, a critical advantage for defense and security applications.
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Smaller, more integrated chips, reducing the need for external components and lowering system-level cost and complexity.
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Material and energy savings at scale, as more efficient RF chips reduce electronics footprint across millions of navigation-enabled devices.

Qualinx changes how radio is built and deployed.