Others that have received funding recently include InCore, which raised $3 million from Peak XV. Mindgrove Technologies raised $8 million from Peak XV and others. Agnit Semiconductors has raised $4.87 million from 3one4 Capital and others.
The Covid pandemic showed that India needed to develop its own supply chain, said Ganapathy Subramaniam, managing partner, Yali Capital, and former Texas Instruments executive. In the last few years, the government has drawn up several initiatives to develop the ecosystem.
Over the past four decades, the country has produced chip designers for Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD, Subramaniam said.
“India is the second-largest centre for chip design for companies in the US, South Korea and Japan, creating a huge talent pool in the country,” he said.
Scaling up semiconductors is still a challenge, said Tarun Pathak, research director, Counterpoint Research.
“India is still dependent on imports for many essential inputs, particularly from China, which holds cost and volume advantages due to its mature manufacturing and efficient supply chains,” he said. “Matching the scale while keeping the costs down will be a challenge.”
In addition, while government policies help, global original equipment manufacturers have established supply networks and the shift will take time, he said.