Startup Funding: Q1 2026


The new year started off with a bang for private semiconductor companies, with 18 garnering mega funding rounds exceeding $100 million, and two, Rapidus and Cerebras, reaching the $1 billion mark. Predictably, the vast majority of those are either designing chips primarily for AI inference workloads or attempting to overcome bandwidth limitations by improving interconnects from the chip level t... » read more

Startup Funding: Q2 2025


Investors were drawn to a wide range of innovative approaches in Q2 2025, backing startups developing superconducting logic, chips for an emerging number format, big data processors, and novel power semi architectures. At the same time, photonics continues to draw investment dollars due to its ability to move data faster and with less energy at both the chip-to-chip and data center levels. T... » read more

Startup Funding: Q1 2025


The first quarter of 2025 saw six companies raise at least $100 million in investment. Of those, three went to quantum hardware companies, with major investment into neutral atom, superconducting, and hybrid quantum control approaches. AI chips and enabling technology were another big winner in the quarter, with companies developing optical communications tech for chips and data center infra... » read more

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

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