Startup Funding: Q3 2024


Numerous new companies burst on the scene in the third quarter of 2024, including startups with plans for customizable RISC-V-based IP for applications from microcontrollers to data centers, high-speed data center interconnects, compute-in-memory LLM inference chips, and surveillance camera SoCs. Although it did not report funding, AheadComputing also launched last quarter to develop RISC-V cor... » read more

Startup Funding: Q2 2024


AI drew more investors to the chip industry in Q2. Four AI-focused chip startups receiving rounds of more than $100 million, targeting data center ASICs for transformers, highly flexible platforms for the embedded edge, dataflow processors, and mixed-signal neuromorphic chips. In-memory computing also helped boost AI, with three companies either incorporating it into their chips or providing sp... » read more

Startup Funding: September 2023


Chip-to-chip and data center I/O drew investor interest in September, including support for several startups developing Compute Express Link (CXL) solutions. Elsewhere in the data center, several large rounds went to companies developing AI accelerators. And at the edge, startups are building unique ways to handle AI at very little power by initially processing data directly at the sensor. O... » read more

Startup Funding: August 2023


August startup funding continued to follow the trends that put AI and autonomous driving at the top of funding. One of August's largest rounds went to a company designing AI processor IP that can scale from the edge to the cloud. Plus, three battery manufacturers brought in one billion dollars or more. This report covers 37 companies that collectively raised $4.2 billion in August 2023. [... » read more

Startup Funding: July 2023


Investors pumped more than $2.8 billion into 123 companies July. It was a particularly strong month for photonics companies, with a photonic integrated circuit foundry raising more than $100 million. Startups this month also are using photonic technology in innovative ways. This includes an all-optical RISC processor, biomarker identification, faster fully homomorphic encryption, and more AI... » read more

Startup Funding: June 2023


June saw several large funding rounds, with seven of at least $100 million. Over half a billion dollars alone went to a Chinese company manufacturing silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors. The wide band gap material has seen steady interest from investors, particularly for its potential use in electric vehicles. Another of the month's mega-rounds went to a company designing RISC-V SoCs ... » read more

Startup Funding: May 2023


Photonic interconnects were an area of activity in May, with two companies raising funds for what could be much faster chip-to-chip and chiplet-to-chiplet links. Microstructured optics and metasurfaces also drew investment, with four companies creating products for a range of applications from flexible LEDs to multi-wavelength spectral imaging. The large language models that power many gener... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2023


Funding was broadly spread between sectors in March, with automotive edging ahead thanks to a more than $100 million round for a company manufacturing electric, autonomous heavy commercial trucks for freight logistics. To keep up with the amount of information presented by cars and ADAS, several companies raised funds for head-up displays with increasing levels of detail and expanded fields of ... » read more

Startup Funding: February 2023


The cost of borrowing is going up, but investors continued to pour money into the chip industry in February. Collectively, 132 companies raised more than $4.5 billion last month. One of the big beneficiaries was quantum computing, with nine companies drawing a total of more than $500 million. The bulk of that went to a quantum software and services company spun out of Alphabet, but plenty wa... » read more

Startup Funding: November 2022


November was a month for mega-rounds, with ten companies receiving investments of at least $100 million. One of those is a startup providing connectivity solutions for data centers and enabling use of the memory pooling functionality in the latest update to the CXL standard. Two quantum computer startups were part of the $100M+ club this month — one using very cold atoms to take on not only q... » read more

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