SiMa.ai, a Silicon Valley chip startup, has secured a significant $70 million funding round led by Maverick Capital, aimed at advancing chips tailored to accelerate AI applications in everyday consumer devices, from cameras to cars.
In this latest financing round, Point72 and Jericho joined as investors alongside existing backers Amplify Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, and Fidelity Management, bringing the total raised by the San Jose firm to $270 million. SiMa.ai specializes in designing processors that empower devices to comprehend and process data from the environment, converting it into text, speech, or video content.
The company is part of a growing cohort of startups dedicated to enhancing hardware for an AI-driven future. Established in 2018, SiMa.ai boasts a board featuring industry heavyweights like Moshe Gavrielov, director of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and Lip‑Bu Tan, a board member of Intel Corp.
Unlike AI training, which typically requires high-end processors like Nvidia Corp.’s chips, SiMa.ai focuses on inference, enabling AI models on devices to detect objects. Krishna Rangasayee, founder and CEO of SiMa.ai, shared that the startup has already secured over 50 customers for its initial chip, primarily focused on computer vision, with plans underway for a second-generation chip slated for release next year.
Rangasayee highlighted the versatility of SiMa.ai’s new chip, stating, “We are now combining all this modality so that you could look at all of it. You could speak, you could touch, you could feel. And we’re kind of mimicking human capability.”
While Nvidia’s software has dominated the landscape of AI development, Rangasayee emphasized that SiMa.ai's device tools are open-source and utilized by over 10,000 business customers worldwide. Moreover, SiMa.ai’s products are compatible with various open standards, including Linux and OpenCL.
Currently, the company relies on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to manufacture its chips, leveraging a strategic partnership facilitated by investor VentureTech Alliance, which has ties to the Taiwanese chipmaker. Rangasayee described the company's identity as a "software company that builds their own silicon."
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