Startup Funding: Q2 2026

Investors kept pouring money into AI hardware startups in the second quarter of 2026. While companies focused on chips for AI data centers have largely dominated the funding over the past year, startups creating edge silicon re-emerged this quarter as investors see the appeal of physical AI and real-time on-device applications. However, large-scale AI infrastructure chips and other attendant aspects, such as faster data movement and higher voltage power semiconductors, still drew the bulk of the AI funding.

Quantum, too, had a particularly successful quarter, with 21 companies raising funds, six of which drew $100 million or more. Different qubit modalities were well represented, with superconducting hardware joined by spin-based, neural atom, and ion trap approaches. Cryogenic control electronics, quantum chip test, and networking also saw funding.

There were a plethora of large rounds during the quarter: 18 companies reached or exceeded $100 million, including numerous early-stage rounds. The quarter also saw innovative inspection technologies, a new Malaysian OSAT, a fresh infusion of government cash for Rapidus, and much more in this look at 80 companies that collectively raised over $6 billion in Q2 2026.

• Summary table
• Chips
• AI hardware
• EDA & design
• Manufacturing & equipment
• Test, measurement & inspection
• Analog & mixed signal
• Power devices
• Photonics & optics
• Sensors
• Previous reports

Chips

SiFive raised $400.0M in Series G funding led by Atreides Management and joined by Apollo Global Management, Nvidia, Point72 Turion, T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Prosperity7 Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. SiFive provides a broad range of RISC-V-based processor core IP. Its portfolio consists of high-performance 64-bit application processors with between 3-wide to 6-wide out-of-order cores and up to 2 dedicated vector engines; pre-defined and customizable low-power embedded microcontrollers; highly scalable vector and matrix processors for AI and modern workloads, which include vector operations specifically tuned to accelerate machine learning operations; and deterministic real-time processor solutions specifically designed for the automotive industry. Funds will accelerate the development of RISC-V CPU and AI IP solutions for the data center. Founded in 2015, it is based in Santa Clara, California, USA.

AttoTude raised $52.0M in Series C funding led by The Westly Group, joined by Keysight, Allegis Capital, DNX Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, Mayfield, Canaan Partners, and Wing Venture Capital. AttoTude offers an interconnect platform for AI and hyperscale infrastructure that combines advanced ASIC signal generation with low-loss dielectric waveguides to enable high-bandwidth, energy-efficient connectivity for per-lane data rates of 200G, 400G, and 800G. The THz radio over wire approach aims to deliver scalable mid-range connectivity that overcomes the performance limitations of copper while avoiding the complexity of optical technologies. Funds will support the build-out of the first prototypes and supply chain establishment. Founded in 2024, it is based in Menlo Park, California, USA, and has raised $143M to date.

HYFIX Spatial Intelligence raised $15.0M in seed funding led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Catapult Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Finality Capital, and Sky Dayton. HYFIX is designing an SoC for drones and robotics that integrates flight control, high-accuracy positioning, secure wireless communications, and onboard intelligence. It is designed to operate reliably in GPS-degraded or denied environments and supports open-source ecosystems including ROS 2, ArduPilot, and PX4. It targets a range of drone sizes and weights across consumer, commercial, and defense markets. Founded in 2022, it is based in Santa Clara, California, USA.

BigEndian Semiconductors raised $6.0M in funding led by IAN Group, joined by Vertex Ventures SEA & India, IvyCap Ventures, and angel investors. BigEndian is developing high-performance surveillance camera SoCs for enterprise and consumer applications, with a focus on manageability and a flexible design approach. The startup recently taped out its first chip and will use the funds to move from test silicon to real-world deployments. Founded in 2024, it is based in Bengaluru, India.

Morphing Machines added INR 420.0M (~$4.4M) to its Series A round from Navam Capital, Hero Enterprise, and Colossa Ventures. Morphing Machines develops a many-core, massively parallel, runtime reconfigurable SoC platform that can scale from 16 cores to 4K cores. The embedded processor platform enables multiple domain-specific architectures on a single chip that can be instantiated on demand upon an event to handle mixed critical tasks and applications simultaneously. Target markets include avionics, automotive, and 5G/6G telecom, as well as data center, AI infrastructure, and HPC. Funds will support a test chip and customer pilots. Founded in 2005, it is based in Bengaluru, India.

AI hardware

Etched emerged from stealth with $500.0M in funding from VentureTech Alliance, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Jump Trading, Two Sigma, Stripes, Ribbit Capital, Radical Ventures, Primary VC, Positive Sum, and individual investors. Etched co-designs chips, racks, software, and manufacturing methods for frontier model inference. The startup has designed an architecture that can operate the chip’s math blocks at reduced voltage, which it says enables it to run trillion-parameter sparse MoEs at 80%+ peak FLOPs without thermal throttling. Etched also uses a hybrid HBM/SRAM design with a shared memory pool, enabled by an ultra-low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnect to speed memory access across chips. The company plans to ship rack-scale systems this summer. Founded in 2022, it is based in San Jose, California, USA, and has raised $800M to date.

Acrab emerged from stealth with over $350.0M in funding from Vertex Ventures SEA & India and others. Acrab is developing a full-stack compute architecture for edge agentic AI, spanning AI silicon, local LLM inference, an operating system, multimodal human-machine interfaces, and agent orchestration. The startup is designing its SoC for on-device inference with a focus on improving the coordination between CPUs and NPUs in a heterogeneous system. Funds will support R&D. Founded in 2024, it is based in Singapore.

Fractile raised $220.0M in funding led by Accel Partners, Factorial Funds, and Founders Fund, with participation from Conviction Partners, Gigascale Capital, O1A, Felicis, Buckley Ventures, 8VC, and existing investors. Fractile develops frontier LLM inference chips where memory and compute are physically interleaved. The startup claims its approach can enable longer context windows and serve thousands of tokens per second to thousands of concurrent users within a reasonable power budget. Funds will support delivery of its first chips. Founded in 2022, it is based in London, UK.

Upscale AI added $190.0M in a Series A-1 round led by Premji Invest, joined by NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, Seligman Ventures, Temasek, Maverick Silicon, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, StepStone Group, and Tiger Global. Upscale AI provides silicon, systems, and software for ultra-low AI latency networking. Based around open standards such as ESUN, Ultra Accelerator Link, and Ultra Ethernet, the company’s platform unifies GPUs, AI accelerators, memory, storage, and networking into a single, synchronized AI engine. Offerings include a high-bandwidth AI networking fabric for data centers, a network operating system based on SAI/SONiC, and rack platforms. Founded in 2025, it is based in Santa Clara, California, USA, and has raised $500M to date.

XCENA raised $135.0M in Series B funding led by Atinum Investment and IMM Investment, with participation from SBI Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, STIC Ventures, Wonik Investment Partners, SV Investment, LB Investment, Corstone Asia, Kiwoom Investment, DSC Investment, Shinhan Venture Investment, Korea Development Bank, KDB Capital, Premier Partners, Kolon Investment, Company K Partners, K2 Investment Partners, Partners Investment, and Kyobo Securities. XCENA develops computational memory architectures that reduce data bottlenecks in AI infrastructure and other high-demand compute workloads. Built on CXL 3.2, the approach merges high-capacity pooled DDR5 memory with near-data processing comprised of thousands of custom RISC-V cores and vector processing engines to support data orchestration tasks, including preprocessing and KV cache management. The company also provides a full-stack SDK with multi-level APIs, simulation tools, and drivers. Funds will be used to validate real-world performance, scale deployments globally, and expand go-to-market capabilities. Founded in 2022 as MetisX, it is based in Seongnam, South Korea, and has raised $185M to date.

Dnotitia raised KRW 90.0B (~$61.2M) in a Series A round led by Elohim Partners, with participation from Kiwoom Investment, Starting Line, Maple Investment Partners, Daesung Startup Investment, Shinhan Venture Investment, Ulmus Investment, KOLON Investment, HB Investment, Tony Investment, SJ Investment Partners, and FuturePlay. Dnotitia is developing a vector database and vector data processing unit (VDPU) designed to accelerate data search and processing in generative AI environments. The VDPU is part of the company’s vision for a unified AI data stack that integrates external knowledge, long-term memory, and working memory. It is also working on a personal device for running LLMs. Founded in 2023, it is based in Seoul, South Korea.

HrdWyr raised $13.0M in Series A funding led by Ideaspring Capital, with participation from Singularity AMC, Avatar Growth Capital, and Persistent Systems. HrdWyr develops domain-specific AI SoCs. The chip architecture combines real-time processing with adaptive learning, implementing a dedicated AI engine that enables smart decision-making and parallel processing, while ML evolves and optimizes the chip based on real-world usage patterns. Target applications include consumer electronics, white goods, EVs, and data centers. Founded in 2023, it is based in Bengaluru, India.

EDA & design

Cognichip raised $60.0M in Series A funding led by Seligman Ventures, with participation from SBI Investment, Mayfield, Lux Capital, FPV, Candou Ventures, and others. Cognichip has created a physics-informed AI foundation model for chip design that fuses logic and physics-based reasoning to navigate complex design spaces and provide unified planning and orchestration, unlimited context management, predictable operational efficiency, and secure deployment into chip design environments. By shifting from traditional serial workflows to concurrent, adaptive, and highly automated design processes, the startup claims its full-stack AI-enabled design solution can reduce design cycles, cut development costs, and optimize designs for power, performance, and efficiency. Founded in 2024, it is based in Redwood City, California, USA, and has raised $93M to date.

Architect Labs emerged from stealth with $24.0M in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Race Capital, TQ Ventures, and Together Fund. Architect Labs is building an end-to-end AI system that it claims can design and provably verify custom chips for a client’s specification or target workload. Funds will be used for compute infrastructure, AI research, and to co-design production silicon with early partners. Founded in 2025, it is based in Palo Alto, California, USA.

BoolSi raised $6.0M in seed funding led by Fine Structure Ventures, with participation from Pillar VC, Fifth Quarter Ventures, and Coalition Ventures. BoolSi is developing a compiler that can take embedded software written in C, C++, or other high-level languages and custom-generate a circuit and driver for an FPGA accelerator that sits next to the CPU to address targeted bottlenecks. To achieve this, the startup says it has developed neural networks that are a strict superset of the circuits that can implement a program’s behavior, where training drives the weights toward exact discrete values until it converges into digital circuits. Functional and formal verification are employed to check correctness. Its initial target market is embedded developers in robotics. Founded in 2023, it is based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Manufacturing & equipment

Rapidus received an additional JPY 150.0B (~$943.0M) subsidy from Japan’s Information-Technology Promotion Agency, following an investment earlier this year. Rapidus is a pure-play foundry that will offer leading-edge process technology and advanced packaging in an integrated, end-to-end approach. The company is currently building a 2nm logic semiconductor fab, with mass production expected to begin in 2027. Founded in 2022, it is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Syenta raised AUD $37.0M (~$26.0M) in Series A funding led by Playground Global and Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund, with participation from Investible, Salus Ventures, Jelix Ventures, and Wollemi Capital. Syenta has developed localized electrochemical manufacturing technology that combines deposition and patterning in a single step to build high-resolution chip-to-chip interconnects. The method uses a stamp electrode with a dielectric pattern that defines localized electrochemical cells, enabling precision metal deposition only within those cells. Syenta says its approach enables sub-micron interconnects manufactured on large >1000 mm² packages with high throughput. Founded in 2022, it is based in Sydney, Australia.

Itera emerged from stealth with $12.0M in seed funding from Upfront Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Colle Capital. Itera has developed a fluid circuit board testing and prototyping system based around a glass and liquid metal substrate that can be reconfigured in under 60 seconds. The startup’s business model has companies provide it with design files, which it compiles on the substrate. Itera then provides secure remote access to the circuit board, with complete circuit visibility, for testing and iteration, delivering production-ready design files at the end of the process. Founded in 2024, it is based in San Francisco, California, USA.

Test, measurement & inspection

Nearfield Instruments raised $380.0M in Series D funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, along with Temasek, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Innovation Industries, M&G Investments, Invest-NL, Qatar Investment Authority, TNO Ventures, and ING Group. Nearfield Instruments supplies inspection and metrology equipment. Its 3D scanning probe microscopy system can perform non-destructive in-line measurement of 3nm and below gate-all-around FETs, complementary FETs, and hybrid-bonded structures, including sidewall measurements of complex structures such as high-aspect-ratio trenches, GAA recess, vias, and multi-layered stacks. Nearfield’s equipment uses a parallel architecture of miniature SPMs to throughput, while the sidewall imaging mode combines sidewall force sensing and advanced sensor fusion to determine the probe’s precise position in 3D space. Founded in 2016 as a spin off from research organization TNO, it is based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Liquid Instruments raised $50.0M in Series C funding led by Keysight Technologies and Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation. Liquid Instruments makes software-defined test and measurement devices that use FPGAs to combine multiple instruments into one. The reconfigurable platform includes oscilloscope, programmable power supply, PID controller, digital logic analyzer, arbitrary waveform generator, data logger, spectrum analyzer, and more. The company’s offerings range from portable devices for quick experiments and testing to high-bandwidth advanced devices that allow users to run and connect multiple instruments at the same time for a customized test system. Applications include aerospace and defense, semiconductor, and quantum research. Funds will be used to accelerate product development, scale the platform, and expand go-to-market in key verticals. Founded in 2014, it is based in Canberra, Australia.

Invisix raised €20.0M (~$23.3M) in seed funding from Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, imec.xpand, Doosan Investment, and others. Invisix offers a high-throughput, non-destructive metrology system using soft X-ray scatterometry. Its High Harmonic Generation (HHG) process uses a short-pulsed drive laser to excite noble-gas atoms into a high-energy state, in which the atoms emit short-wavelength soft X-ray light at many colors, generating a richer 3D signal than typical single-wavelength lasers. This is combined with reconstruction algorithms and machine learning to reconstruct the detailed 3D internal structure of devices, with scalable throughput for high-volume manufacturing. The technology has been used to successfully measure key features in gate-all-around transistors. Funds will be used to accelerate development of its first shippable system, support customer demonstrations, and hire. Founded in 2025 as a spin-out from ASML, it is based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

FusionAP raised $2.0M in pre-seed funding led by Vertex Ventures SEA & India and Southern Capital Group. FusionAP is building a geopolitically neutral outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) platform for advanced 2.5D, 3D, and beyond-Moore packaging solutions combining chiplet architectures, advanced interconnects, and system-level optimization. Funds will go towards engineering and process integration build-out, R&D and intellectual property development, and pilot capacity. Founded in 2025, it is based in Penang, Malaysia.

Analog & mixed signal

Stathera raised $55.0M in Series B funding led by Maverick Silicon with participation from Celesta Capital, BDC Capital, MediaTek Innovation Fund, TXC Corporation, and Ultratech Capital Partners. Stathera develops MEMS-based timing solutions that provide both MHz and kHz reference clock, enabling it to replace two quartz oscillators. Along with a low-jitter packaged MEMS oscillator, Stathera also offers an embedded MEMS resonator that can be integrated into an MCU/SoC/PMIC for system control, power-moding, and Real Time Clock (RTC), or into communication ICs. The startup says its technology is resistant to temperature changes, vibration, and shock with low power consumption and area, making it suitable for applications such as wearables, IoT, smartphones, and other wireless connected devices. Funds will be used for mass production of its GEN2 32.768 kHz product and development of its next-gen dual-mode platform for AI data centers. Founded in 2020 based on technology that originated at McGill University and was further developed by Nxtsens, it is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and has raised $75M to date.

Point2 Technology added $31.4M to its Series B round led by Maverick Silicon, with participation from Nvidia’s NVentures and UMC Capital. Point2 develops ultra‑low‑power, ultra‑low‑latency RF and mixed‑signal interconnect SoCs and smart retimers for scalable, high‑bandwidth‑density, multi‑terabit cable interconnects in data centers. Its Active RF Cable platform transmits data wirelessly using millimeter wave RF transmitter/receiver SoCs through a plastic dielectric waveguide. A purely electrical technology, the company says it can scale to 800G/1.6T/3.2T cable speeds and beyond by implementing modern modulation techniques for wireless transmission. Founded in 2016, it is based in San Jose, California, USA.

Power devices

Reed Semiconductor raised $100.0M in funding. Reed offers power semiconductors for a range of markets. Its products include multiphase controllers, smart power stages, power modules, intermediate bus converters, eFuses, power MUX, and point-of-load DC-DC controllers. Funds will be used to accelerate product development, broaden market reach, and enhance operational scale. Founded in 2019, it is based in Warwick, Rhode Island, USA.

IVWorks raised $4.5M in pre-IPO funding. IVWorks makes gallium nitride (GaN) epitaxial wafers for RF and power semiconductor applications. It offers a selective area regrowth capability for advanced GaN device integration to address contact resistance reduction in GaN devices. It also provides AlN HEMT on SiC, GaN HEMT on Si, and vertical GaN epiwafers. The company is expanding into E-band and W-band RF applications for satellite communications and wireless backhaul, as well as AI power delivery with PoL converters for HBM and GPU platforms. IVWorks is preparing to list on KOSDAQ. Founded in 2011, it is based in Daejeon, South Korea, and has raised $33M to date.

Photonics & optics

HyperLight raised $80.0M in Series C funding led by MediaTek, with participation from UMC Capital, Jabil, Foxconn, SG Growth Capital, CDIB-TEN Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, and others. HyperLight provides thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic ICs. Its TFLN chiplet platform is designed to unify the requirements of short-reach IMDD-based data center pluggables, longer-reach coherent datacom and telecom modules, and co-packaged optics within a single high-volume manufacturable architecture that combines ultra-high modulation bandwidth, CMOS-level drive voltage, and ultra-low optical loss. It currently supports 200G-per-lane operation and is sampling 400G-per-lane solutions. Funds will be used to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate qualification, and scale the chiplet platform. Founded in 2018, it is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

nEye raised $80.0M in Series C funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation from Alphabet’s CapitalG, Microsoft’s M12, Socratic Partners, and others. nEye develops optical circuit switches that integrate silicon photonics, MEMS, and CMOS in a single chip. Targeted at data centers and AI fabrics, the reconfigurable optical interconnect uses compact, fast-switching optical layers that allow for the flexible pooling of CPU, GPU, and memory resources. Funds will accelerate development and high-volume manufacturing. Founded in 2020, it is based in Santa Clara, California, USA, and has raised $152M to date.

OpenLight raised $50.0M in a Series A-1 round led by Matter Venture Partners, with participation from Acclimate Ventures, Catapult Ventures, Xora Innovation, Capricorn Investment Group, Mayfield, and New Legacy Ventures. OpenLight enables custom photonic ASIC design and manufacturing through its process design kit (PDK). Based on the heterogeneous integration of indium phosphide and silicon photonics, the PDK provides access to a library of passive and active components covering integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers, and detectors, including a 400Gb/s modulator and indium phosphide heterogeneously integrated on-chip laser technology. It also offers design services. Funds will be used to expand its PDK library and ramp up development of reference PICs at 1.6T and 3.2T. Formerly a Synopsys subsidiary, it became an independent company in 2025 and is based in Santa Barbara, California, USA.

Sensors

Eyeo raised €40.0M (~$47.1M) in Series A funding led by Innovation Industries, with participation from imec.xpand, Invest-NL, QBIC Fund, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and Brabant Development Agency. Eyeo offers a nanophotonic color-splitting technology for image sensors. Compatible with any CMOS sensor platform, the vertical waveguide-based technology splits light into component colors and guides photons to single pixels, which maximizes light sensitivity compared to traditional color filters, particularly in low-light environments. It also allows the sub-0.5-micron pixels to receive complete color data, increasing resolution. Funding will be used to accelerate sensor design capabilities, deepen OEM partner ecosystem, and drive commercial deployment. A spin-off from imec founded in 2024, it is based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Prophesee raised €20.0M (~$23.2M) in funding led by Critical Path Ventures. Prophesee makes neuromorphic event-based image sensors. Inspired by the human visual system, each of the sensor’s pixels responds independently in microseconds when movement occurs, enabling it to capture fast, erratic targets in low light, backlit, and cluttered environments. The sensors are paired with a software platform with built-in AI processing. The company recently introduced an integrated drone detection and tracking system. It also targets industrial, consumer, and automotive applications. Founded in 2014, it is based in Paris, France.

Table