Startup Funding: September 2020


It was a good month for startups, with big rounds in automotive, data centers, and AI. A new startup with big backing is taking aim at energy inefficiency in the data center, and another is looking to make the industrial IoT battery-free. SK Hynix founded a new company to analyze semiconductor manufacturing data, and one of China's EV companies sees a massive cash infusion. This month, we look ... » read more

VC Perspectives On An AI Summer


It’s been a busy summer for Applied Ventures. Our team has had many interactions in the startup and investing space, and added some new companies to our portfolio. I’ll be sharing highlights of these activities in a series of upcoming blogs, but first I’d like to reflect on current market developments in machine learning and how they are affecting VC investment patterns. Strategic inve... » read more

A VC View Of The AI Landscape


In this blog post, I’ll highlight my takeaways from the recent AI Hardware Summit where I participated as a panelist. The conference’s focus on developing hardware accelerators for neural networks and computer vision attracted companies from across the ecosystem – AI chip startups, semiconductor companies, system vendors/OEMs, data center providers, financial services companies and VCs,... » read more

Impact Of IP On AI SoCs


The combination of mathematics and processing capability has set in motion a new generation of technology advancements with an entire new world of possibilities related to Artificial Intelligence. AI mimics human behavior using deep learning algorithms. Neural networks are what we define as deep learning, which is a subset of machine learning, which is yet a subset of AI, as shown in Figure 1. ... » read more

$8.5B For Auto, IoT, Security Startups


Investors infused $4.9 billion into automotive-related startups, nearly $2.5 billion into IoT startups and almost $1.2 billion into cybersecurity startups so far in 2018, according to Semiconductor Engineering’s estimates of private funding in the first six months of 2018. Popular investments included companies using artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain, machine learning... » read more

Time To Pay The Piper


The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a German fable about a rat catcher who used his magic pipe to lure away rats. When he was not paid by the town, he used his pipe to lure away all of the town's children. I am not suggesting that exactly the same is true for the semiconductor industry and having not paid [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"], but I do not think they have paid enough and they will now have to ... » read more