Sensesemi Raises Rs 25 Cr for Edge AI Chip Innovation

Sensesemi plans to use seed capital to advance its first system-on-chip designs and move towards commercial deployments over the next few years. The funding will also support product development, chip tape-outs, team expansion, and partnerships with device makers. In an exclusive interaction with AIM pre-funding, Vijay Muktamath, founder and chief executive officer of Sensesemi, said his background in analog and RF design shaped the company's direction.

"Most implantable devices or chips are always analog in nature," he said, referring to his work on a retinal implant project in Australia. "Our approach is vertical integration of these functions on a single chip to reduce system complexity and power consumption," he said, adding that customers also seek "secure, reliable supply chain access." Alongside its digital architecture, Sensesemi is developing an analog AI inference processor aimed at battery-operated and implantable devices. "Analog-domain AI inferencing allows us to achieve dramatic improvements in power efficiency," said Namit Varma, the company's co-founder and head of engineering, pointing to applications such as medical implants and industrial sensors.

Muktamath said capital availability remains a challenge for chip startups in India. "Ten years back, the funding was never available for any of the hardware, forget about the chip side of things," he said, adding that the DLI scheme helped change the environment. Commenting on the investment, Piper Serica founder and fund manager Abhay Agarwal said India's semiconductor market could cross $100 billion by 2030, and that companies with strong chip design capabilities would create long-term value.