Agrani Labs, an AI chip startup founded by former Intel and AMD engineers, has emerged from stealth with an $8 million funding round led by Peak XV Partners.

Founded by Dheemanth Nagaraj, Ashok Jagannathan, Srikanth Nimmagadda, and Rajesh Vivekanandham in 2024, Bengaluru, India-based Agrani is building a full-stack AI compute platform that includes custom hardware and software for deployment in data centers.

Agrani said it would use the funds to expand its engineering teams and advance product development, including its own chips, compilers, libraries, and system software. The company said this approach will help to minimize adoption hurdles associated with proprietary platforms.

"For a team that has lived and breathed compute architecture for decades, building an AI computer grounds-up to help advance the potential of this technology is gratifying. We are leveraging India’s immense semiconductor and software talent to build a product that will compete on the global stage,” said co-founder and CEO Nagaraj, in comments to the Economic Times, India.