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

China Chip Industry Startup Funding Annual Report & Analysis: 2022


China is racing to stay competitive in semiconductors, as trade sanctions increasingly limit its access to EDA tools and manufacturing equipment required for the most advanced manufacturing processes. As a result, state-backed investors and regional development funds are pouring money into domestic semiconductor companies. This report will provide a glimpse into where the money is going, and wh... » read more

Startup Funding: December 2022


The month of December saw six rounds of $100 million or more. The largest, at a massive half-billion dollars, will support manufacturing of 12-inch monocrystalline silicon polished wafers and epitaxial wafers in China. The company is aiming for a production rate of 1 million pieces a month when current expansion is completed. Also in the half-billion club last month is a company making auton... » 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

Startup Funding: May 2022


May was another strong month for China as it continues its push to build a native semiconductor ecosystem. Over half the month's total funding went to startups in the country. Over half the companies funded were from China as well, including two FPGA companies, three making CPUs, a GPU startup, and numerous networking and wireless chip companies. Two of those, in FPGAs and CPUs, raised rounds s... » 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: September 2021


Startups focused on data center chips had a big month in September. A new emergent from stealth promises to accelerate big data analytics, and startups proving CXL connectivity and high-performance RISC-V chiplets also drew funding. On the other end of the spectrum, NB-IoT and edge AI designers saw investment while a company providing on-chip monitoring can predict when chips will fail. Plus, c... » read more

Startup Funding: April 2021


April showers brought mega fundraising rounds to the semiconductor industry. In China, a mobile chipset maker looking to go public won significant funding along with partnerships with major smartphone companies. In the US, AI hardware startups are drawing interest with unique processor architectures and business models. Plus, a major test and design services company drew new investment. This mo... » read more

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