The as soon as untouchable semiconductor sector continues to entice fervent consideration from VCs.
The newest information this morning is that Ajay Royan of Mithril Capital has led a $55 million Series D spherical of financing into Flex Logix, which builds chips designed to deliver AI workflows to the compute edge. That follows on earlier rounds within the firm totaling $27 million from the likes of Lux, Eclipse Ventures and Tate Family Trust, the funding car of the corporate’s founder and CEO Geoff Tate.
This isn’t Mithril’s first foray into the chip investing world. The firm previously backed Nuvia, a promising entrant within the server chip market which was based by a number of of the highest chip designers of Apple’s A-line of processors. Mithril invested $240 million in Nuvia final September, simply a few months earlier than the corporate flipped over to Qualcomm in a $1.4 billion transaction introduced in January.
Back to Flex Logix although: we final coated the corporate in October, when it announced the availability of its X1 AI chip. As I wrote on the time:
Flex Logix needs to deliver AI processing workflows to the compute edge, which implies it needs to provide know-how that provides synthetic intelligence to merchandise like medical imaging tools and robotics. At the sting, processing energy clearly issues, however so does measurement and value. More environment friendly chips are simpler to embrace in merchandise, the place pricing could put constraints on the price of particular person elements.
Mithril in its assertion famous the corporate’s energy in designing a aggressive processor which meets tight energy and price necessities in a white-hot phase of semiconductors. It additionally was excited that Flex Logix has developed a robust nicely of mental property within the eFPGA house, the place there was energetic exercise given growing curiosity from clients for versatile processors that may adapt to utility wants over time.
For extra data on Flex Logix and its founding story, read our earlier profile.