Indian chip firm Netrasemi raises $1.2 million

Indian semiconductor start-up Netrasemi has raised ₹100 million (around 1.2 million USD) in pre-series A funding. The round was led by Unicorn India Ventures.

The Kerala-based company intends to use the funds for the fabrication of two ML SoC chips (Netra A2000 and Netra R1000), according to a media release. 

Founded in 2020 by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deepa Geetha, Netrasemi is an Edge AI semiconductor technology company building system-on-chips (SOC) to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. 

“Netrasemi family of chips will be the first AI/ML SoCs from India for intelligent edge devices, with a full array of digital IPs in-house developed,” Jyothis Indirabhai, co-founder of Netrasemi, said. “We not only own the chip but also own what goes inside. We are excited to be backed by Unicorn India Ventures and believe this funding will play a crucial step for us to fuel our continued expansion and success.”

“There are attractive opportunities in the edge AI software market and there is absolutely no denying that the AI industry has the potential to transform various sectors,” Anil Joshi, managing partner, Unicorn India Ventures, said. “The funding accelerates Netrasemi’s mission to deploy the solutions on a better scale.”

With a 61-member team, the company is bringing a family of AI/ML capable SOCs and reference designs for solving 100+ AI/ML use cases making Edge AI product development efficient, simple and economical. 

These chips go into motherboards that make these products capable of doing advanced AI-based analytics without the need for sending the data to servers and the cloud, the company said. Key target segments include defense, surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision and industry 4.0, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles.