Semiconductor startup CalligoTech raises $1.1 million led by Seafund & Artha Venture Fund

Semiconductor startup Calligo Technologies has raised $1.1 million in a pre-series A funding round led by Seafund and Artha Venture Fund.

The startup, whose products are focused on Accelerating High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI workloads with its implementation of POSIT in silicon, plans to use the raised capital for R&D expenses to develop the ver2.0 Silicon chip and platform.

Additionally, it is planning to further increase its engineering talent and tech capabilities to build va er2.0 Semiconductor products and establish partnerships with System Integrators and OEMs/ODMs.

What does Calligo Technologies do?

Founded by Anantha Kinnal, Rajaraman Subramanian, and Vinay N Hebbali, Calligo Technologies is focused on developing products and solutions for HPC, Big Data, and AI workloads.

The startup aims to solve the performance bottlenecks of computing needed for large-scale modelling and simulations in HPC systems and large-model training and inference needed in AI systems, a critical need in a market with large computational needs.

"Insatiable demand for computing for HPC/AI has thus far been addressed by adding more and more Hardware, without addressing computing efficiency at grass-root levels. POSIT is a game-changing invention for real-number representation, as it tackles this issue by enabling the use of fewer computing bits for the same or improved mathematical accuracy, higher energy efficiency, and an increase in dynamic range," said Anantha Kinnal.

In the last 12 months, CalligoTech has collaborated with US universities, national laboratories, and supercomputing centres to improve access to tech talent and soft launch its operations in the US.

Notably, it has also built an accelerator board, received First Pass Silicon Ver1.0, and started shipping to customers.

"Combining Posits with RISC-V, our current version of Silicon TUNGA - an Octacore RISC-V CPU - powers our accelerator card that can be added to any X86/ARM/PowerPC-based Servers. This is already enabling researchers worldwide to realize the usefulness of  Posit-based computing," Kinnal added.

Planning for future growth

CalligoTech has modified RISC-V C/C++/gFortran/Python compilers, frameworks, and libraries to support Posits and generate Posit-enabled executables natively. The startup said that its approach requires no source-level modifications to run HPC/AI applications.

In the next 12-18 months, it plans to capture the market by allowing customers to experience its current product and tape out its System-on-Chip (ver2.0 of Silicon) for high-volume manufacturing.

Industry growth potential

According to Custom Market Insights, India’s Semiconductor Market was valued at $6.67 Billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $14.09 Billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast period 2024 – 2032.

"Compute requirement is growing exponentially across the globe. CalligoTech chips and platform improves performance and reduces data power consumption with their innovative approach. They have completed the full chip cycle from design to products in v1.0 and are accelerating to tapeout the nextgen silicon," said Narendra Bhandari, General Partner, Seafund.

"With AI and HPC workloads growing exponentially, computing efficiency is more critical than ever. Calligo’s POSIT-based chips solve fundamental performance bottlenecks, enabling faster, more precise, and power-efficient computing at scale. As demand for large-scale modeling and AI training surges, we see POSIT as a game-changing innovation poised to become a new standard in computing," said Anirudh A Damani, Managing Partner of Artha Venture Fund.