Robotics and Edge computing processors startup SiMa.ai has raised $70 million in its latest funding round.
The round was led by Maverick Capital and included participation from existing investors Amplify Partners and Dell Technologies Capital, as well as prominent chip industry executive Lip-Bu Tan. It brings the total funding raised by SiMa.ai to $270 million.
Headquartered in San Jose, California, SiMa.ai was founded in 2018 by former Groq COO, Krishna Rangasayee. The company’s embedded Edge machine learning system-on-chip (MLSoC) was first released in 2022 and, unlike other accelerators that only perform the neural net function of machine learning, SiMa.ai’s offering allows customers to run entire applications on a chip.
SiMa.ai said it will use the funds to meet growing customer demands for its current MLSoC offering and bring forward the launch of its next-generation processor, which is expected in Q1 of 2025.
The company’s second-generation MLSoC, which was announced in conjunction with the funding news, will be a “software-centric platform for all Edge AI including computer vision, transformers, and generative AI,” that will scale in line with customer AI and machine learning needs.
“AI - particularly the rapid rise of generative AI - is fundamentally reshaping the way that humans and machines work together. Our customers are poised to benefit from giving sight, sound, and speech to their edge devices, which is exactly what our next-generation MLSoC is designed to do,” said Rangasayee.
