SiMa.ai raises $70 mn in extended round; announces second generation of MLSoC platform

Software and machine learning chip design company SiMa.ai raised $70 million in an extended Series B funding round. With the new round led by Maverick Capital, along with Point72, Jericho, and others, the total funding raised by the company now stands at $270 million. The company also unveiled the second generation of its Machine Learning System-on-Chip (MLSoC) platform along with the fund-raising announcement. 

MLSoC is a computing platform that helps users in running legacy code at first and then deploy these capabilities into a machine learning component in phases. The platform also consists of a software component called Palette which works similar to a cloud environment, for developers to build and deploy on multiple devices. The first generation of MLSoC was released in 2022. The second generation is slated for Q1 2025 release, which will represent ‘one software-centric platform for all edge AI’, helping customers build in domains ranging from computer vision to multi-modal generative AI, the company said. 

To be sure, Taiwan-based TSMC is the manufacturing partner for SiMA.ai. “TSMC doesn’t only manufacture our chips but its investment arm has invested in our company as well. We are the only AI on edge chip company that TSMC has invested in so it is a very special endorsement,” Automotive Head - Harald Kroeger told TechCircle.

The company was founded by Krishna Rangasayee in 2020 with headquarters in Bengaluru and California. The founding principle on which the company was established was to take AI to the edge. “A lot of AI is happening in cloud and data centers. However, there are some unbeatable advantages of AI on the edge, which include reduced latency and cost advantages. This was the founding idea on which SiMa.ai was born,” explained Kroeger. The company has 140 employees, of which 60% are India-based. 

Going forward, the company is looking forward to working with clients in robotics, automotive, the government, and the healthcare sector “where edge tech can provide immense value in terms of top-notch security and privacy," statement said.