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: 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

Chip Industry Startup Funding: Q3 2025


The third quarter of 2025 was dominated by massive rounds for companies developing AI chips and quantum computers. Over $2.5 billion went to AI, with wafer-scale chip maker Cerebras leading the pack with a $1.1 billion raise. While several edge AI companies received backing, the quarter saw a marked shift towards solutions for the data center as firms seek to reduce the cost and power consumpti... » 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: Q4 2024


The fourth quarter of 2024 saw five mega-rounds of over $100 million. One of the hottest areas continues to be AI hardware, with one company developing RISC-V AI processor IP bringing in nearly $700 million in the largest round for a chip design startup this year. It was far from the only AI startup, however, as several companies gathered support for neuromorphic designs focused on ultra-low po... » read more

Startup Funding: December 2023


Photonics and optics were strong in December, with investors funding two different companies using photonic technologies to develop AI chips and interconnects. Another key area — metaoptics — combines what traditionally would be separate lenses and optical components into a single, flat nanopatterned device. Metaoptics are being deployed in applications ranging from AI processing and sensor... » 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: 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: July 2021


The trend of big funding for Chinese autonomous driving companies continued in July, with three startups each drawing $100M or more for efforts in ADAS and computer vision for automotive. The month also saw one electric vehicle manufacturer get a massive boost as it begins production on its first models, while significant funding also went to a company that wants to recycle used up EV batteries... » read more

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