Startup Funding: Q4 2025


The promise of AI dominated the last quarter of 2025. Investors were eager to claim stakes in both brand-new startups and more established companies developing AI-specific hardware, primarily for data centers, with over $1 billion alone flowing into the sector. The largest round of the quarter went to a new entrant aiming to fundamentally change how AI compute is performed, while two in-memory ... » read more

Cognichip: Using AI To Speed Complex Chip Design


AI software innovation is accelerating, while the chip design process is struggling to keep pace due to rising complexity and physical constraints. The big challenge now is how to close that gap. The solution is at least as complex as the hardware design. It requires much greater reuse of IP, along with portions of existing designs, so that not everything needs to be created from scratch. AI... » 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: 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: September 2022


The onshoring and buildout of dozens of fabs, many costing tens of billions of dollars, is beginning to spill over into other areas that are critical for chip manufacturing. Materials, in particular, which often gets little attention outside of chip manufacturing, witnessed a big spike in September 2022. In fact, seven materials companies covered in this report made up more than a third of the ... » read more

Startup Funding: November 2021


There's nothing virtual about the level of interest in AR/VR startups. As the concept of the 'metaverse' becomes more widespread with Nvidia's recent GTC announcements and Facebook's rebranding, investors poured money into startups with enabling technology for augmented, virtual, and extended reality. Most of those are developing waveguides and other display technology that is light enough to b... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2021


Self-driving vehicles revved up investors in March, with two companies receiving over $200M apiece as they prepare for their systems to enter mass production. One focuses on software for passenger vehicles, while the other is looking to autonomous trucks. Both of the companies received investment from automakers, with China's largest carmaker SAIC joining each of the funding rounds. It was also... » read more

Startup Funding: October 2020


October 2020 was a big month for startups across the automotive space, with sizeable funding all around. Three startups based out of China brought in over $100M apiece for ADAS and autonomous driving, and a fourth U.S.-based startup saw $125M investment for simulating and testing autonomous driving systems. Two electric vehicle manufacturers also received $100M+ rounds. Collectively, the auto c... » read more

June’19 Startup Funding


During the month of June, there were 15 startups that brought in funding rounds of $100 million or more, as investors continued to chase deals in cybersecurity, automotive technology, semiconductors, and a variety of services. There were no billion-dollar deals as spring slid into summer; yet, those 15 companies together raised a total of about $3.13 billion. Aurora Innovation, the developer... » read more

May’19 Startup Funding: Mega-Funding Rounds Continue


In May, 20 startups enjoyed the distinction of getting a mega-round of $100 million or more in private funding. Those 20 companies together took in more than $6.65 billion. There were two billion-dollar investments in recent weeks. GM Cruise, the autonomous vehicle startup, received $1.15 billion in new funding from General Motors, Honda Motor, the SoftBank Vision Fund, T. Rowe Price Asso... » read more

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