Semiconductor startup Netrasemi raises Rs 10 crore in funding to build Edge AI

Kerala-based Semiconductor startup Netrasemi has raised Rs 10 crore in a pre-Series A funding round from Unicorn India Ventures to build Edge AI for IoT products.

The startup will use the raised capital for the fabrication of two ML SoC chips (Netra A2000 and Netra R1000).

What does Netrasemi do?

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

The startup, which has a 61-member team, is bringing a family of AI/ML-enabled SoCs and reference designs for solving 100+ AI/ML use cases, making Edge AI product development efficient, simple and economical.

According to Netrasemi, 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.

Encouraging responses from large OEMS

Netrasemi claims that it has been receiving encouraging responses from large OEMS across various countries operating in medical, telecom and industrial segments.

The startup also said that it has started generating strong revenue growth and profits of ~$0.75 million 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.

"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," said Jyothis Indirabhai.

Netrasemi designed three SoC (System on Chip)

Netrasemi has developed three SoC families: Netra-R1000, Netra-A2000, and Netra-A4000. These 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.

According to the startup, 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. It can enable solution players to develop advanced ML and vision application use cases faster and with ease.

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, 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.

"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,' said Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures.