Netrasemi Secures INR 107 Cr To Build Edge AI Chip

Semiconductor startup Netrasemi has secured INR 107 Cr (around $12.4 Mn) in a Series A funding round led by Zoho Corporation, with additional participation from Unicorn India Ventures.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate its research and development initiatives, expand manufacturing capabilities and ramp up marketing efforts.

Further, it plans to bring in four system-on-chip (SoC) variants with advanced AI and video analytics features into production and address compute platform requirements of original equipment manufactures (OEMs) for surveillance, industrial robotics, and smart infrastructure products.

Founded in 2020 by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deepa Geetha, Netrasemi builds SoCs required for optimal computing in smart IoT (internet of things) products, specifically that is required in simplifying complex workloads like video processing.

The company’s deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and its in-house silicon intellectual properties enable the chips developed by Netrsemi to carry out advanced AI-powered analytics on devices, and replace the requirement to communicate the data with servers or cloud.

“Netrasemi chips enable solution players to develop advanced ML and vision application use cases faster and with ease. We not only make advanced System-on-Chips, but own the IP cores that go inside to make them achieve edge-efficient computing,” Indirabhai said.

The startup also plans to double its workforce to 166 chip engineering professionals from the current strength of 83 engineers, target diverse applications across surveillance, industrial robotics, smart home devices, smart city infrastructure and retail sectors.

The development comes at a time when the country is paving ways to expand in the semiconductor space. On that note, the India Semiconductor Mission was introduced in 2022 to establish the country as a global hub for electronics manufacturing and design. 

In 2024, seven semiconductor startups in India raised funding of over $28 Mn.

A few weeks ago, semiconductor design-focussed GenAI startup Maieutic Semiconductor raised $4.15 Mn (about INR 35 Cr) in its seed funding round.

Prior to that, Bengaluru-based Calligo Technologies secured $1.1 Mn (around INR 9.4 Cr) in a Pre-Series A funding round in April, to build its second version of silicon chip.

It is pertinent to note that India’s semiconductor demand is projected to reach $100-110 Bn by 2030 from the current demand of $45–50 Bn, MeitY Secretary S Krishnan said earlier this year.