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Modern technology is revolutionising industries, driving innovations in smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and advanced AI systems. As India strives for self-reliance in technological advancements, the country has seen a rapid rise in advanced technology startups.
At the core of this transformation lies the semiconductor industry and the government’s intention to give this space a much-needed push.
In 2021, the government launched the Semicon India programme, committing INR 76,000 Cr to incentivise silicon semiconductor fabs, display fabs, compound semiconductors, and more.
A year later, the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) was introduced to establish India as a global hub for electronics manufacturing and design.
The Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, part of the ‘Semicon India Future Design’ programme, is one of the many initiatives that offers financial and infrastructure support to boost semiconductor development. It focusses on areas like integrated circuits (ICs), chipsets, Systems on Chips (SoCs), and related designs.
The ‘Make in India’ initiative further reinforces efforts to reduce dependency on imports and strengthen the domestic tech ecosystem. Not to mention, partnerships with global semiconductor giants, including AMD, Micron, and Qualcomm, have complemented these initiatives.
In February 2022, the Tata Group, in collaboration with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC), secured approval to establish India’s first semiconductor fab.
However, this is not India’s first stab at doing something notable in this sector. The country’s journey in the semiconductor space dates back to 1976, with the establishment of the Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali, Punjab, under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Years later, new-age startups have formed a beeline to chase the country’s semiconductor dream that could potentially transform the world for good.
Amid this and the rising demand for faster and more efficient chips, Indian startups are exploring diverse opportunities in this space. According to an Inc4s2 report, the Indian semiconductor market is projected to become a $150 Bn opportunity by 2030.
As the semiconductor industry rapidly grows in the country, the union government is discussing plans for the rollout of the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission. The government may also extend support to chip design projects and semiconductor packaging designs.
Investor interest in the sector surged in 2024, with funding for semiconductor startups exceeding $28 Mn from $5 Mn in 2023. Chennai-based Mindgrove Technologies led the way with $8 Mn in funding, followed by FermionIC with $6 Mn.
While much is yet to be achieved, here is the list of startups which are poised to shape India’s semiconductor future.
(Note: The list below is not meant to be a ranking of any kind. We have listed the Indian semiconductor startups in alphabetical order. We will be updating this list periodically. If you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com)
AGNIT Semiconductors
Established in 2019 by seven semiconductor experts – Hareesh Chandrasekar, Madhusudan Atre, Mayank Shrivastava, Digbijoy Nath, Muralidharan Rangarajan, Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, and Srinivasan Raghavan – AGNIT Semiconductors specialises in Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology.
The startup designs and manufactures GaN materials (wafers) and electronic components which find use in radio-frequency applications across defense and telecommunication industries.
In 2023, the Ministry of Defence inked a contract with AGNIT for the design and development of advanced GaN semiconductors, slated for integration into the next generation of wireless transmitters for defence applications, including radars and electronic warfare jammers.
In its maiden round of funding, AGNIT bagged $3.5 Mn (INR 29.4 Cr) in its seed funding round co-led by 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock in October 2024.
The company counts the likes of Infineon Technologies and Innoscience as its competitors.
Aura Semiconductor
Founded in 2011 by Srinath Sridharan and Kishore Ganti, Aura Semiconductor or Aurasemi is a fabless semiconductor startup designs and supplies mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) for various industrial applications, including communication, IoT, and automotive.
It makes products in categories such as timing, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), power, RF, IoT and sensors. Recently, Nasdaq-listed precision timing company SiTime Corporation acquired all time-related products from Aurasemi.
The startup has raised an undisclosed capital via its Series A funding round in 2016 from investors Celesta Capital and Walden Riverwood Ventures.
Blueberry Semiconductors
Founded by industry veterans Nitin Naik and Naveen YK in 2018, Blueberry Semiconductors is a VLSI-focussed startup that helps other businesses develop and implement semiconductor technologies.
The startup specialises in building application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and system-on-a-ship (SoC) design.
The startup serves clients across industries like aerospace, automobiles, defense, IT, among others. Some of its clients include Intel, Mahindra, Raymond, SanDisk, among others.
Prior to establishing Blueberry Semiconductors, the founders offered another semiconductor startup named Orange Semiconductors. The startup focused on VLSI services and home automation IoT and was acquired by an Indian product company, Moschip, in 2016.
C2i Semiconductors
Founded in 2024 by Vikram Gakhar, Preetam Charan Anand Tadeparthy, and Ramprasad Ananthaswamy, C2i (abbreviation for conversion, control, and intelligence) Semiconductors is a fabless chip design startup focussed on analogue and mixed-signal designs.
On the back of over 100 years cumulative experience, the startup’s founders aim to position C2i Semiconductors as a globally competitive player, strengthening India’s presence in the global semiconductor design ecosystem.
While the startup is yet to launch its products, it is focussed on building chips that are likely to find use in enterprise server power management, AI, telecom, and data infrastructure.
With this, the startup aims to reduce the global carbon footprint through its energy-efficient products.
Since inception, C2i Semiconductors has raised $4 Mn from deeptech venture fund Yali Capital in November, 2024.
CalligoTech
Calligo Technologies is a Bengaluru-based fabless semiconductor and systems startup serving segments like high-performance computing, Big Data and AI/ML segments globally.
CalligoTech has developed a co-processor capable of doing computations using a new number system called Posit, which was invented in 2017. In June 2024, the startup unveiled an 8-core Posit-enabled RISC-V CPU named TUNGA. It claims to be the world’s first in doing so.
The company claims that TUNGA’s energy-efficient design results in lower power consumption and is scalable across a range of applications for HPC and AI.
The startup is also a beneficiary of the central government’s DLI scheme.
Chipspirit
Founded in 2018, Chipspirit is a Bengaluru-based services and solutions provider in the semiconductor space.
Its application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design services has a special focus on design and turnkey projects. On the other hand, it also claims to provide fully customisable hardware security solutions.
Chipspirit’s Abhed-1 is a dedicated secure hardware-based offline and online encryption device for transacting classified data over public or open Data networks.
The semiconductor company won the iDEX challenge in March 2019. It is now co-developing its hardware security solutions with Indian Defence under the Centre’s Make-In-India initiative.
As per MeitY’s website, Chipspirit is also one of the beneficiaries of its DLI scheme.
Cientra
Founded in 2015 by Uday Joshi and Sandip Kadtane, Cientra is a semiconductor solutions company, specialising in VLSI, ASIC, FPGA, SoCs, catering to telecom (4G, 5G, IoT), automotive (SDV, ADAS, connectivity, EV) and embedded software.
The semiconductor design solutions of the company include register-transfer level (RTL) design, design verification, physical design, and analogue design and layout offering.
Cientra is a multinational company with offices in India, the USA, and Germany. Last year, the company launched a vendor-agnostic 5G IoT aggregator solution in partnership with Amantya Technologies, which they claimed to be the ‘world’s first’.
In 2024, IT giant Accenture acquired Cientra to expand its silicon design and engineering capabilities.
FermionIC Design
Founded in 2020, Bengaluru-based FermionIC Design is a fabless semiconductor startup developing ICs for high-speed wireline and RF communication market. Its current product portfolio includes a highly integrated beamformer core chip in the silicon-germanium (SiGe) process that enables the X-band millimetre-wave communications for active electronically scanned array (AESA), sat-comm applications, and others.
The startup’s mixed signal product family includes ultra-low-noise low dropout (LDO)-ICs, low-phase noise crystal oscillators and Serialiser/Deserialiser (SerDes) products.
Founded by Gautam Kumar Singh, Prasun Bhattacharyya, Abhra Bagchi, and Shabaaz Syed, FermionIC Design has remained bootstrapped so far. It claims to have multiple global and Indian OEM customers who are building their SoCs and systems using FermionIC products.
In 2023, the Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced FermionIC Design as one of the first set of startups selected under the government’s Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme.
FermionIC last raised $6 Mn in a funding round led by Lucky Investment Managers’ Ashish Kacholia and his associates in September 2024.
Incore Semiconductors
Founded in 2018, InCore Semiconductor is building 5th generation RISC/RISC-V processor cores in India. RISC or reduced instruction set computer is a microprocessor architecture that utilises a reduced number of computer instruction types, hence enabling systems to operate at higher speeds.
InCore, founded by Arjun Menon, Gautam Doshi, GS Madhusudan, and Neel Gala, is headquartered at the IIT Madras Research Park. The startup last raised $3 Mn from Peak XV Partners in May 2023.
The startup aims to make India a powerhouse in the RISC-V solution space. Its processor cores power high-performance application-class processors, area/power-optimised embedded processors, and more.
The startup claims to bring a high degree of automation to the processor and SoC design process.
InCore counts the likes of ARM, Andes Technology, and SiFive among its competitors.
Mindgrove Technologies
Mindgrove Technologies is a Chennai-based semiconductor startup founded in 2021. It works in the space of design and production of SoCs.
Incubated at IIT Madras, Mindgrove uses the indigenous RISC-V Shakti cores to power its chips.
The startup is currently working on its inaugural chip, Secure IoT, which is designed for a range of consumer electronics devices, including TVs, washing machines, air conditioners, and refrigerators. Its multi-processor chip comes with security accelerators, a true random number generator, and one-time programmable memory.
Founded by Shashwath T R and Sharan Srinivas J, the startup secured $2.32 Mn in seed funding in 2023 led by Peak XV Partners. Its other investors include names like Speciale Invest and Whiteboard Capital.
Mindgrove Technologies last raised $8 Mn (INR 68.04 Cr) in its Series A funding round co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest in December 2024.
Morphing Machines
Morphing Machines is a fabless semiconductor startup building IP products and solutions. Its patented product ‘REDEFINE’ is a many-core SoC platform, in which domain-specific architectures (DSAs) for mixed critical application tasks are instantiated on demand of any event. DSAs are specialised and optimised hardware designs tailored to specific application domains or industries.
Its technology serves various industries, including avionics, automobile, and telecom. Besides, ‘REDEFINE’ helps accelerate a host of applications for Big Data Analytics, Genome Analytics, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, Large Scale Scientific Simulations, and immersive gaming and visualisations.
Morphing Machines has also received projects under the DLI and Chips2Startup (C2S) schemes from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
Launched through the Technology Entrepreneurship initiative of the Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru in 2005, Morphing Machines is a bootstrapped startup. Its founders are Dr S.K. Nandy, Dr Ranjani Narayan, and Deepak Shapeti. Morphing Machines last secured $2.76 Mn in a seed funding round led by Speciale Invest in June 2024.
Morphing Machine counts Intel, NVIDIA and AMD as its competitors.
Netrasemi
Founded in 2020, Netrasemi is a Kerala-based Edge AI semiconductor technology company building SOCs to enable the new-age need for optimal computing for smart IoT products. Netrasemi has a power-efficient deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and a rich portfolio of silicon IPs to enable this.
Its key target segments are surveillance, smart sensors, smart infrastructure, machine vision and industry 4.0, robotics, drones, and autonomous vehicles, among others.
The company’s domain-specific architecture (DSA), IP-rich SOCs, AI development tools, flexible SDKs, and platform reference designs help IoT product and solution makers to go to market with cost-effective and power-efficient advanced AI chipsets catering to their specific domains.
Its A2000 SOC has smart vision capability with advanced real-time video analytics and vision processing capabilities. On the other hand, NETRA-R1000 is a RISC-V-based SOC for smart sensor applications.
Netrasemi is also a beneficiary of the Central government’s DLI scheme.
Netrasemi last raised INR 10 Cr (around $1.2 Mn) in a Pre-Series A funding round from Unicorn India Ventures in December 2024.
Oakter
Oakter is an Original Device Manufacturer (ODM), which designs and manufactures electronic smart devices, including fintech giant Paytm’s revolutionary soundboxes.
Launched in 2015 by a founding team from IIT Delhi, the Noida-based Oakter soon became a leading name in the smart plugs market. In 2017, the startup became the launch partner for Amazon Alexa in India.
In 2019, the startup pivoted to contract manufacturing. Over the years, Oakter fulfilled multiple B2B contract manufacturing orders from the likes of Sony (for its BRAVIA TV), Saregama (for Carvaan), and Syska, among others.
In 2020, Oakter collaborated with DRDO to manufacture Covid safety products.
With the emergence of new-age technologies, the startup has also collaborated with EV charging aggregation platform, ElectricPe, to develop its charge points.
Its early backers include IndiaQuotient and Flipkart founder Binny Bansal. As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised over $500K in total funding over the years.
RRP Electronics
Founded in 2024 by Rajendra Chodankar, RRP Electronics assembles and tests semiconductor components to cater to the needs of automobile and telecom players.
In September 2024, the company announced the launch of Maharashtra’s first semiconductor manufacturing OSAT/ATMP (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) facility.
The first phase of the packaging facility setup started generating revenue in August 2024. The second phase, which is a pilot fab facility, began generating revenue in December 2024. Currently, it is developing existing facilities and expanding further.
RRP Electronics a few days ago entered into a strategic alliance with US-based Deca Technologies to push its semiconductor capabilities, as per multiple reports.
Saankhya Labs
The 2007-founded Saankhya Labs claims to be the country’s first fabless semiconductor solutions company. Based in Bengaluru, the startup manufactures integrated circuits (ICs) and other components for various satellite and broadcast applications, including 5G New Radio, direct-to-mobile (D2M) broadcast, rural broadband connectivity, and satellite communication modems for IoT applications.
The startup also claims to have developed the world’s first production Software Defined Radios (SDR) chipsets, which enable converting radio signals into electronic signals and vice versa for a wide range of applications, including, but not limited to, smart TVs and set-top boxes.
Founded by Parag Naik, Vishwakumara Kayargadde, and Hemant Mallapur, Saankhya Labs is a subsidiary of listed broadband and wireless networking company Tejas Networks. Its former backers included the likes of Intel and General Motors, who exited the company a few years ago.
Recently, in February 2024, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) approved Saankhya Labs’ application to the Centre’s semiconductor Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme for the development of a System-on-Chip (SoC) for 5G telecom infrastructure equipment.
As per publicly available data, the company is expected to have raised around $18 Mn in total funding. However, Inc42 couldn’t independently verify the exact amount of funds raised so far.
Sensesemi
Founded in 2014 by Vijay Muktamath, Sensesemi builds the next-generation secured connected AI Edge chip for varied applications in the field of Industrial IoT such as smart appliances, healthcare, and automotive. Its flagship product is named SenseSoC.
By embedding AI capabilities directly onto the chip, it claims to enable edge inferencing, bringing real-time decision-making to the devices.
Sensesemi also won financial support under the Centre’s DLI Scheme earlier this year.
On winning the government support, company founder Muktamath said, “As part of the DLI Scheme, Sensesemi will be developing the SoC for IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) and IoT devices, that shall have MCU and wireless IP integrated with ultra-low power analogue front end with AI inferencing IP.”
SignOff Semiconductors
Founded in 2015, Signoff Semiconductors is one of the pioneering Indian startups in semiconductor design services.
Involved in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) services, the company has developed in-house capabilities to help customers with the designs of ICs — both application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) — that function in the areas of AI, ML, Edge IoT, as well as general-purpose processors.
Signoff claims to serve its clients with a range of services, including physical design, full custom analogue and digital custom layout and verification, register-transfer level (RTL) design, verification, embedded, and firmware.
The semiconductor company has served domains such as automotive, medical, connected edge, and consumer electronics.
Signoff currently has offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Toronto, and the US.
Silectric Semiconductor Manufacturing
Founded in 2024, Silectric Semiconductor Manufacturing is a Zoho semiconductor venture specialising in manufacturing silicon carbide and compound semiconductors.
The company is looking to set up a semiconductor manufacturing unit near Mysuru at a cost of INR 3,425.6 Cr.
Silectric plans to establish a silicon carbide-based fabrication facility and an assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) unit.
Silizium Circuits
Hyderabad-based Silizium Circuits is an analog radio frequency (RF) IP focussed company. It develops indigenous IPs for a range of wireless applications, including 5G, IoT, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), smart mobility, AI, and ML.
Founded in 2020, the startup aims to replace analogue RF IP imports in India with indigenous Silizium Circuits’ IPs by 2025 and become the largest analogue, RF, mixed signal IP exporter from India by 2030.
In 2021, Silizium Circuits became one of the eight NXP FabCI 2021 cohort qualifiers, which is a two-year incubation and acceleration programme.
Founded by Rijin John and Dr Arun Ashok, Silizium Circuits also provides a faculty upskilling programme to guide, train, and upskill the electronics/electrical faculty community in the country.
Suchi Semicon
Founded in 2023 by chairman of Surat-based textile company Suchi Group’s Ashok Mehta and his son Shetal Mehta, Suchi Semicon is a semiconductor company that recently inaugurated India’s first outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) plant in Surat.
Through its factory, Suchi Semicon focuses on delivering IC (integrated circuits)-related packaging solutions and testing services.
The company expects to start commercial production by March this year, once the equipment delivery is completed.
Suchi is planning to start with assembling and testing basic small outline integrated circuit (SOIC) chips for consumer electronics such as televisions, computers, and air conditioners.
In its next phase of expansion, the company will also start producing the TO-Leadless (TOLL) package used in automobiles. Infineon’s OptiMOS is one of the leading chips in this segment.
Terminus Circuits
Founded in 2010 by Dr Sankar Reddy, Terminus Circuits designs and develops high-speed serial links, which are a type of communication protocol that transmits data in a single differential signal, enabling data and clocking information to be sent simultaneously.
The startup claims to offer a one-stop solution for all Serialiser/De-Serialiser (SerDes) designing. Besides, ethernet SerDes, it is also a leading provider of PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express), USB (Universal Serial Bus), and MIPI (mobile industry processor interface) to OEMs for big data, AI, ML, server chips, and 5G applications.
Terminus Circuits has a partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the biggest chip producers in the world.
VASBEAM
VASBEAM is an advanced electronically steered antenna (ESA) design and semiconductor design company. It offers turnkey solutions to defence, aerospace, civil, and maritime industries.
As a beneficiary of the Centre’s DLI scheme, VASBEAM has successfully completed a tape-out of its core beamforming IC product line, which operates within the 800 MHz to 18 GHz frequency range. This product line supports various applications, including radars, satellite systems, 5G communication systems, and more.
The startup has developed an antenna testing device (VASATD1) to enable accurate measurements of the antenna array, among other products.
Vervesemi
Incorporated in 2017, Vervesemi is a fabless semiconductor company developing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for sensors and wireless devices.
The company has two business verticals – Analog-RF ASIC-Data converters and Analog IPs. It develops products and analogue IP solutions for various semiconductor application markets, including energy, 4G/5G market, medical, consumer, and smart power.
Noida-based Vervesemi currently has two design centres in India. Earlier this year, it announced the launch of India-made semiconductor ASIC.
Last year, MeitY announced Vervesemi among the first set of startups selected under the Semicon India Future Design DLI scheme.
The startup claims to have over 25 patents in its kitty.
This is a running article, we will keep adding more names to the list. If you would like to refer any startup, write to editor@inc42.com.
Last updated on March 26, 2025
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