Netrasemi raises ₹10 crore in Pre-Series A round to advance Edge AI development

Kerala-based semiconductor startup Netrasemi has raised ₹10 crore in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The funds will be utilized for the fabrication of two machine learning system-on-chip (SoC) products, Netra A2000 and Netra R1000, designed for Edge AI applications in IoT devices.

Founded in 2020 by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma, and Deepa Geetha, Netrasemi develops SoCs aimed at meeting computational requirements for smart IoT devices. The company has a team of 61 members working on AI/ML-capable SoCs and reference designs that support over 100 use cases, enabling efficient and cost-effective Edge AI product development. These chips are integrated into motherboards, allowing devices to perform AI-based analytics locally without reliance on servers or cloud infrastructure.

Over the past year, Netrasemi has reported revenue growth from chip design and porting services, generating profits of approximately $0.75 million. The company projects a 150% revenue increase in FY25 with contributions from intellectual property (IP) revenue and anticipates further growth starting FY27 with volume chip production.

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 engaged with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in medical, telecom, and industrial sectors across multiple countries. The company’s SoCs target applications in surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision & industry 4.0, robotics, drones, and autonomous vehicles.

The funding will support Netrasemi’s ongoing chip development, including its three system-on-chip (SoC) families: Netra-R1000, Netra-A2000, and Netra-A4000. These machine learning-capable chips are based on the company’s domain-specific architecture (DSA) and incorporate its graph-stream hardware acceleration technology. The chips are designed to address specific customer application requirements and are intended for use in the edge market, aiming to facilitate the development of machine learning and vision application use cases efficiently.

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.”

Netrasemi has received backing from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) through its DLI and C2S programs, as well as support from international accelerators like Taiwan’s TTA.

Unicorn India Ventures is a technology-focused early-stage venture capital firm launched in 2016. The firm has invested in sectors including SaaS, climate tech, and semiconductors, managing three funds and supporting a portfolio of startups in various stages of growth.

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