Phil Inagaki

Phil Inagaki founded the semiconductor materials company Polyera at 24 and spent the first 15 years of his career as a deep tech founder and chief executive, according to Xora. He is now managing partner and chief investment officer of Xora, Temasek's early-stage investment platform, and leads Xora Venture Labs, its startup incubation practice.

Physics at Princeton University

He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a B.A. in physics and holds 12 U.S. patents.

At Polyera, his longest tenure, he took a novel semiconductor technology from Northwestern University to commercialization with multiple fab partners in Asia, according to Princeton's Keller Center. He has raised more than $100 million across five startups. By the time he moved into venture capital at 38 he had been both a founding and a hired CEO, raised rounds from pre-seed to Series D, and commercialized several technologies.

Starting in Venture Capital at The Engine

He started his venture capital career at The Engine in Boston, Massachusetts. At Xora he led the firm's investments in Celestial AI and HyperLight, and he co-founded and chairs Amperesand.

Leading Xora's Bet on Hang Ten Systems

In September 2026 Xora led a $53 million expansion of the seed round of Hang Ten Systems, the AI startup founded by former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, according to TechCrunch. Early customer wins prompted Xora to approach Hang Ten about investing. The startup says it can use teams of about two to four people for some projects that might previously have required about 30.