Latest news with #DesignLinkedIncentive
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
TrEST Research Park-incubated semiconductor start-up Netrasemi secures Series A funding
Fabless semiconductor start-up Netrasemi Pvt. Ltd., incubated at the State-run TrEST Research Park, has successfully raised ₹107 crore in an achievement that could fuel Kerala's deep-tech ambitions. Higher Education Minister R. Bindu said the investment in the start-up's Series A funding round (first round of venture capital funding after a start-up receives initial seed funding) was led by Zoho Corporation and Unicorn India Ventures. 'This is a significant leap for Kerala's growing semiconductor ecosystem. Netrasemi's success adds momentum to the State's deep-tech vision and proves the value of fostering innovation through academic-industry collaboration,' the Minister said. Founded in 2020 by Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deep Geetha, Netrasemi is developing a new generation of domain-specific, power-efficient Edge-AI System-on-Chips (SoCs). These chips are being widely adopted in sectors such as robotics, autonomous systems, smart IoT devices and surveillance technologies. Flagship products like Netra A2000 and R1000 are already in commercial use, offering cutting-edge solutions powered by a patented heterogeneous parallel processing architecture capable of supporting over 100 AI/ML applications, the Minister added in a statement. The start-up has also received backing from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under its Design Linked Incentive (DLI) and Chips to Start-up (C2S) schemes. Modelled after the IIT Madras Research Park, TrEST Research Park was established to offer world-class R&D infrastructure and mentorship, and turn academic research into market-ready solutions.
Mint
4 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Yali Capital raises $104 million in debut deep-tech fund
Yali Capital, a deep tech-focused venture capital firm, has closed its ₹ 893 crore (~$104 million) maiden fund. The firm had set out to raise ₹ 500 crore with a ₹ 310 crore greenshoe option but managed to raise more than that from its limited partners, which the founders believe is a sign that India's appetite for deep tech is growing. In fact, the firm raised 78% of its maiden fund from Indian firms and individuals, while the rest was raised from outside sources. Yali Capital's investor base includes corporate entities like Infosys Ltd, Qualcomm Ventures, Tata AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd, Madhusudhan Kela's Singularity Fund of Funds, Kris Gopalakrishnan's family office Pratithi Investments and notable individuals like ideaForge founders Ankit Mehta and Rahul Singh. 'The involvement of family offices has been a significant tailwind,' said Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at deep-tech-focused venture capital firm Speciale Invest. 'Their longer capital horizon does make them good partners for deep tech founders. Many are moving beyond traditional sectors, actively co-investing in batteries, space, dual-use defense applications, and more.' Overall, Yali Capital is bullish on six sectors within deep tech: chip design, aerospace and surveillance, robotics, genomics, artificial intelligence, and smart manufacturing. The firm is allocating 50% of the fund to chip design and aerospace, while the other 50% will go towards the remaining four sectors mentioned above. The firm's cheque sizes will range from $2 million to $10 million. 'We're allocating 70% of the fund towards early stage (pre-seed, seed and Series A) investments and 30% will go towards late stage (Series D and beyond) companies from the fund,' Yali Capital's founding managing partner Ganapathy Subramaniam told Mint in an interview. He founded the firm with Mathew Cyriac, the former co-head of Blackstone India PE, which managed $3 billion in assets. The $104 million fund is the largest deep tech-focused fund to close so far this year. According to private company data platform Venture Intelligence, Endiya Partners and Triton Fund have raised $92 million and $14 million, respectively, in 2025 for their new deep tech-focused funds. Other than these two, there are five other firms working on raising capital for the sector, including Speciale Invest ($35 million), Mela Ventures ($117 million) and IIMA-CIE's Bharat Innovation Fund II, which is targeting a $150 million fund. India has only about 50 or so deep tech-focused venture capital firms, according to data from market research and data platform Tracxn. The largest deep-tech deals happened in 2023, Venture Intelligence data showed. Hyperspectral satellite imaging firm Pixxel raised the most at $36 million, followed by drone startup NewSpace at $33 million and AgniKul Cosmos at $25 million that year. Yali believes that the government's 2021 Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme to boost semiconductor chip design will help push more and more startups in the chip design and surveillance sectors. 'The DLI scheme is crucial to attract talent back to India to build an Indian chip company. The scheme has a very important role to play,' said Subramaniam. One of Yali Capital's investments, C2i Semiconductors, a fabless chip company, received DLI approval from the ministry of electronics and information technology earlier in January. For deep-tech firms such as Yali Capital, entering at the seed and pre-seed stage allows them to exit companies having made a large return on their investment. 'We believe that India's deep tech ecosystem has matured and, as a result, exit cycles have also shifted. An exit in 7-8 years is highly possible,' Subramaniam said. Yali Capital has made two other investments apart from C2i Semiconductos, robotics startup Perceptyne and oncology genomics startup 4baseCare. Two more are in the pipeline, with the firm planning to make eight investments by the end of the year. Overall, through the fund's lifecycle, the firm plans to make 18 investments: 15 early-stage startups and three late-stage startups. While entering late-stage startups, Yali Capital plans to put in at least $10 million, mostly targeting primary deals and not secondaries. 'If I stay with my late-stage investments for two to three years, then I will almost return the entire capital to investors,' said Subramaniam. Traditionally, deep-tech firms need to give their investments time to mature since timelines for their portfolio companies are longer than traditional bets in sectors like fintech or consumer tech. On average, deep tech startups take between 9 to 10 years to really get going, having spent the years prior investing in their intellectual property and technology. Many investors in the deep-tech sector allude to a phenomenon called the 'Valley of Death', where startups achieve proof-of-concept of their ideas but fail to commercialize them, making it harder for them to get funding after a Series A round. 'What's been missing in deep tech has been scale and monetization because startups haven't found enough domestic customers yet. The government as a customer is still a new phenomenon. Once these patterns are better established and deep-tech firms start generating predictable revenue like peers in SaaS or fintech, growth capital will become available," said Pranav Pai, founding partner and chief investment officer at3one4Capital. Speciale Invest's Rajaram highlighted the need for more patient capital at the Series B and C stage from sovereign funds and corporate VCs, public procurement and anchor customers, and more policy-enabled demand aggregation, similar to the government's Innovations for Defence Excellence programme. 'Bridging this gap is not just about helping startups survive—it's about enabling India to build sovereign capabilities in areas that matter for the future," he said.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Driven by government support, semiconductor startups in India attract record investment
The semiconductor design ecosystem in India is getting stronger as startups supported under the Ministry of Electronics and IT 's (MeitY) Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme and Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme are now gaining significant traction, said Ministry of Electronics & IT in an official a major boost to the sector, Netrasemi, a startup supported under the government's chip design scheme, has received Venture Capital (VC) investment of Rs 107 company is working on making chips for smart vision, CCTV cameras, and Internet of Things (IoT) Minister for Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw, welcomed the development and stated, "India has significant design capabilities. With India Semiconductor Mission supporting Design in India, the success of Netrasemi will encourage other Indian startups."Since the launch of the DLI Scheme in 2022, the government had committed the support of Rs 234 crore for chip design projects from 22 companies with a total project cost of Rs 690 crore. These chips will be used in CCTV cameras, mobile networks, satellites, cars, smart devices, and under these schemes have together raised over Rs 380 crore from venture Capital (VC) investors. Notably, five startups have already built and tested their chip designs with global chip addition, more than 72 companies have been given access to advanced software tools to help them design chips.A few other examples of startups getting backed through private investment include: Mindgrove Technologies (CCTV chip design) raised Rs 85 crore, Fermionic Design (satellite communication chip) raised Rs 50 crore Morphing Machines, InCore Semiconductors, and BigEndian Semiconductors are progressing rapidly towards production the spirit of becoming a 'product nation', the government is encouraging young companies to take bold steps in chip design, while private investors are now supporting them to grow and bring their chips to the market.
The Hindu
5 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Clutch of firms, institutions in Telangana to get support under Centre's Semicon India programme
Three companies in Telangana figure in the list of 22 approved to receive support under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme of the Centre's Semicon India programme. Under the scheme, fiscal support is provided to the approved startup and MSMEs. The three companies that have got approval are Green PMU Semi, WiSig Networks and MosChip Technologies. Additionally, design infrastructure support has also been approved to 11 companies in Telangana. Under Chips to start-up programme (C2S), 22 institutes from Telangana are being supported with design tools and six institutes are being provided financial support, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada said in written response to queries around the India Semiconductor Mission in Lok Sabha from MPs Arvind Dharmapuri and Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy. Mr. Prasada said that the Centre has launched the Semicon India programme with an outlay of ₹76,000 crore for development of sustainable semi-conductor and display ecosystem. Under the programme, fiscal support of 50% of the project cost, on pari-passu basis, will be extended for setting up of silicon complementary metaloxide-semiconductor (CMOS) based semiconductor fabs; and setting up of display fabs. A fiscal support of 50% of the capital expenditure, on pari-passu basis, will be made available for setting up of compound semiconductors / silicon photonics (SiPh) / sensors, including micro-electro-mechanical Systems) fab/ discrete semiconductor fab and semiconductor assembly, testing, marking and packaging (ATMP) / outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facilities. Product design linked incentive of up to 50% of the eligible expenditure, subject to a ceiling of ₹15 crore per application and also 'deployment linked incentive' of 6 to 4% of net sales turnover over five years, subject to a ceiling of ₹30 crore per application for incentivising chip design, will be provided. Under the programme, the Centre has approved six semiconductor manufacturing projects with cumulative investment of around ₹1.55 lakh crore. It is a pan India programme and the applicants are free to choose locations for their projects. Many States have designed their semiconductor policies to align with the Semicon India Programme, the Union Minister said.
Hans India
5 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
6 chip projects okayed; to generate 27,000 jobs
New Delhi: The government has approved six semiconductor manufacturing projects so far with a cumulative investment of around Rs 1,55,000 crore, which are expected to generate more than 27,000 direct job opportunities, the Parliament was informed on Wednesday. The government introduced the 'Semicon India Programme', with an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore for the development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in the country, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jitin Prasada, told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly specialised industry requiring a complex manufacturing process. Therefore, most of the jobs created in this industry are skilled jobs. Further, as the semiconductor industry is a foundational industry, these units are expected to have a cascading effect on employment generation in the other sectors and the supply chain down the line. 'Under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, the fiscal support is provided to the approved startups and MSMEs. Out of 22 design companies approved under the scheme so far, 3 companies are in the state of Telangana,' the minister informed. Apart from the above, design infrastructure support has also been approved for 11 companies in Telangana. Moreover, under the Chips to Startup (C2S) programme, 22 institutes from Telangana are being supported with design tools, and 6 institutes are being provided financial support, Prasada said. Similarly, out of 22 design companies approved under the DLI scheme, so far, 3 companies are approved in Tamil Nadu. Design infrastructure support has also been approved for 6 companies in Tamil Nadu.
