Fabless semiconductor design startup Mindgrove Technologies on Monday said it has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round that it will use to expand its workforce and enhance its in-house engineering capabilities. The round was co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest, with participation from Mela Ventures and existing investors like Peak XV Partners, Nishchay Goel and Whiteboard Capital along with new participation from Anshul Goel.

“The recent investment and the DLI scheme reaffirms confidence in our thesis and capabilities,” Shashwath TR, chief executive of Mindgrove Technologies said in a statement. “The demand in India for high-performance SoCs with essential features for security and edge-compute is growing. We have been actively working towards meeting this need and have made progress in bringing designed-in-India chips to the market.”

The company said that the investment will also accelerate production and sales of its first chip.

In May this year, the company launched “Secure IoT” — India’s first commercial-grade high-performance microcontroller SoC (System-on-Chip) taped out at 28nm. Designed for electronic devices that are transforming into “smart” connected devices like watches, meters, locks and access control units, as well as for powering devices like printers and PoS machines. The chip is on schedule to reach the market by mid-2025.

In addition, Mindgrove received approval under the government of India’s semiconductor design linked incentive (DLI) scheme amounting to Rs 15 crore for developing a new chip, “Vision SoC,” meant for high-performance edge computing and vision processing applications — CCTV cameras, dashcams, video recorders, ADAS, smart TVs, and more.

The company said it is expanding its team across all departments as well – business, engineering, product and applications.“We are proud to further strengthen our partnership with Mindgrove Technologies in their mission to revolutionise the global semiconductor industry with cutting-edge, indigenously designed solutions,” Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner at Speciale Invest said. “The latest round of funding will enable them to accelerate product development and market entry, further driving India’s leadership in the global semiconductor landscape.”

The startup is incubated by IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation and IIT Madras Incubation Cell. In early 2023, Mindgrove Technologies secured $2.325 million in seed funding from Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), Speciale Invest, and Whiteboard Capital.

Fabless semiconductor design startup Mindgrove Technologies on Monday said it has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round that it will use to expand its workforce and enhance its in-house engineering capabilities. The round was co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest, with participation from Mela Ventures and existing investors like Peak XV Partners, Nishchay Goel and Whiteboard Capital along with new participation from Anshul Goel.

“The recent investment and the DLI scheme reaffirms confidence in our thesis and capabilities,” Shashwath TR, chief executive of Mindgrove Technologies said in a statement. “The demand in India for high-performance SoCs with essential features for security and edge-compute is growing. We have been actively working towards meeting this need and have made progress in bringing designed-in-India chips to the market.”

The company said that the investment will also accelerate production and sales of its first chip.

In May this year, the company launched “Secure IoT” — India’s first commercial-grade high-performance microcontroller SoC (System-on-Chip) taped out at 28nm. Designed for electronic devices that are transforming into “smart” connected devices like watches, meters, locks and access control units, as well as for powering devices like printers and PoS machines. The chip is on schedule to reach the market by mid-2025.

In addition, Mindgrove received approval under the government of India’s semiconductor design linked incentive (DLI) scheme amounting to Rs 15 crore for developing a new chip, “Vision SoC,” meant for high-performance edge computing and vision processing applications — CCTV cameras, dashcams, video recorders, ADAS, smart TVs, and more.

The company said it is expanding its team across all departments as well – business, engineering, product and applications.“We are proud to further strengthen our partnership with Mindgrove Technologies in their mission to revolutionise the global semiconductor industry with cutting-edge, indigenously designed solutions,” Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner at Speciale Invest said. “The latest round of funding will enable them to accelerate product development and market entry, further driving India’s leadership in the global semiconductor landscape.”

The startup is incubated by IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation and IIT Madras Incubation Cell. In early 2023, Mindgrove Technologies secured $2.325 million in seed funding from Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), Speciale Invest, and Whiteboard Capital.