Indian Startup Netrasemi Secures INR 10 Crore to Develop Edge AI Chips for IoT Devices

Semicon Startup Netrasemi Bags INR 10 Cr To Build Edge AI For IoT Products

The Thiruvananthapuram-based company will use the fresh capital for fabrication of two ML SoC chips - Netra A2000 and Netra R1000. Founded by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deepa Geetha in 2020, Netrasemi is an Indian Edge AI semiconductor technology company building system-on-chips (SoCs) 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 inhouse developed," said Indirabhai. Its key target segments include surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision and industry 4.0, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles, among others. The company's domain-specific architecture (DSA), SoCs, AI development tools, flexible SDKs and platform reference designs help IoT product and solution makers to go to market with cost effective and power efficient advanced AI chipsets catering to their specific domains. The development comes at a time when India is ramping up efforts to position itself as a semiconductor hub. The government has already approved five semiconductor plants under the India Semiconductor Mission, which are expected to bring in investments worth INR 1.52 Lakh Cr. India's semiconductor startups have seen a host of funding developments recently. For instance, in October, Bengaluru-based AGNIT Semiconductors secured $3.5 Mn (INR 29.4 Cr) in a seed funding round co-led by 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock. Similarly in September, fabless semiconductor startups such as FermionIC Design and BigEndian Semiconductors secured funding from various investors to boost their product expansion and reach overseas markets. India is currently home to over 100 semiconductor startups and the country's semiconductor industry is expected to become a $150 Bn opportunity by 2030 from $33 Bn in 2023, as per Inc42.

Semicon startup Netrasemi raises Rs 10 crore in Pre Series A round from Unicorn India Ventures to build Edge AI

● Netrasemi is building system-on-chips (SOC) to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products ● 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 ● The company has started generating strong revenue growth & profits of ~$ 0.75 M from chip design and porting service for strategy partners, which will grow further in FY25 to 150% with IP revenue, and will grow exponentially starting FY27 once volume production of chips starts. ● In the last 12 months, the company has been receiving encouraging responses from large OEMS across various countries operating in Medical, Telecom and Industrial segments ● The funds raised will be used for fabrication of two ML SoC chips (Netra A2000 and Netra R1000) ● Netrasemi has strong recognition and support, backed by government entities including MeitY (Benefits under DLI and C2S programme) and leading accelerators like Taiwan's TTA Kerala-based Semiconductor startup Netrasemi has raised Rs 10 crore in a Pre Series A round from Unicorn India Ventures to build Edge AI for IoT products. Funds raised will be used for fabrication of two ML SoC chips (Netra A2000 and Netra R1000) Founded in 2020 by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deepa Geetha, Netrasemi is an Indian Edge AI semiconductor technology company building system-on-chips (SOC) to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. With a strong 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 hence, making them smart, cheap, responsive and independent. 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. In the last 12 months, the company has been receiving encouraging responses from large OEMS across various countries operating in medical, telecom and industrial segments and has started generating strong revenue growth & profits of ~$0.75 M from chip design and porting service for strategy partners, which will grow further in FY25 to 150% with IP revenue, and will grow exponentially starting FY27 once volume production of chips starts. Commenting on the investment, Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says "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. The funding accelerates Netrasemi's mission to deploy the solutions on a better scale. We believe Netrasemi will continue to sustain its momentum with its most powerful AI chip for edge devices and strengthen its position in this space. The company has witnessed remarkable progress in the last 12 months and has designed new solutions. Hence, we believe the market opportunity is huge and the company has built the right momentum to capitalise on this segment." Netrasemi has designed 3 SoC (System on Chip) family- Netra-R1000, Netra-A2000 and Netra-A4000. All three chips are high-performance ML-capable chips built on an efficient Netrasemi DSA (Domain Specific Architecture) and feature companies' patented graph-stream hardware acceleration architecture. The chips are designed based on various end-customer application requirements and are very power-efficient as well as optimally priced, to be useful for the edge market. Netrasemi chips can enable solution players to develop advanced ML and vision application use cases faster and with ease. Jyothis Indirabhai, Co-founder Netrasemi, says, "Netrasemi family of chips will be the first AI/ML SoCs from India for intelligent edge devices, with a full array of digital IPs inhouse developed. 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." The key target segments of Netra SOCs are surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision & industry 4.0, robotics, drones, and autonomous vehicles. As the demand for security cameras are surging due to privacy concerns and smart city initiatives, Netrasemi aims to target the market that includes different types of video surveillance among end-user verticals such as government, industrial, BFSI, transportation, and others About Unicorn India Ventures Started in 2016 by Bhaskar Majumdar and Anil Joshi, Unicorn India Ventures is a technology focused early-stage venture fund that invests capital in emerging and visionary startups. Unicorn India Ventures launched its first fund with a corpus of Rs 100 crore From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 17 companies like SmartCoin, Open Bank, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, Clootrack, FutureCure to mention some. The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) was more than 60 percent year over year. The Fund has emerged as the best performing early stage fund in India with the stellar exits provided by the fund to its LPs. Fund II is a Rs 300 crore fund launched in 2020 that has invested in 20 companies so far like Gamerji, ForeignAdmits, Probus, Daalchini, Esmito, Finin. Most of the portfolio is scaling up fast and has had several uprounds. Unicorn India Ventures has recently announced its first close of Rs 1000 crore Fund III. The first close reached at Rs 225 crore. With this Fund, UIV aims to build a portfolio of 25 startups that are focused on global SaaS and digital platforms. From the sector's perspective, the Fund is looking at newer sectors of climate tech, agritech, spacetech and the semiconductor ecosystem. Unicorn has already made 4 investments from Fund III. About Netrasemi Netrasemi is a Kerala-based Indian Edge AI semiconductor technology company building system-on-chips (SOC) to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. 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. Netrasemi has a power-efficient deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and a rich portfolio of silicon IPs to enable this. Netrasemi, founded in 2020, is building system-on- chips (SOCs) and system-on-modules (SOMs) supported with a versatile AI software design framework. They enable 100+ smart vision use- cases with low light imaging, on camera video analytics and video compression. Its key target segments are defense, surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision & industry 4.0, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles, among others.