Bengaluru-based semiconductor startup BigEndian Semiconductors has raised $6 million in a funding round led by IAN Alpha Fund, with participation from Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, IvyCap Ventures and angel investors. The investment has come at a time when the startup is looking to commercialise its first system-on-chip (SoC) and tap rising demand for indigenous semiconductor solutions.

“We are building semiconductor solutions focused on Vision AI systems. Anywhere you see a camera—CCTV, doorbells, cars, drones, industrial equipment—that’s where our chips can be used. Our long-term goal is to power computer vision across use cases,” Sunil Kumar, cofounder and chief executive of BigEndian Semiconductors, told ET.

The startup is initially targeting the CCTV and surveillance segment, but plans to expand into broader edge AI and computer vision use-cases across sectors such as logistics, defence, access control and industrial automation.

The fundraise comes at a time when India is pushing to deepen its semiconductor ecosystem beyond design services and assembly into original silicon product development.

BigEndian, which focuses on secure, high-performance SoCs for Vision AI applications, believes the domestic opportunity itself is significant.

“Just by being in India, it’s a $5 billion market for our domain,” Kumar said. “There should be at least 50 companies like BigEndian or bigger. That’s the depth of this market.”

How the funds will be used

The fresh capital will be used to scale up product engineering, strengthen partnerships with foundries, IP ecosystems and OEMs, and support the commercial rollout of the company’s first chip after a successful tape-out milestone. A tape-out is the final stage of the design process after which the design is sent to a foundry for fabrication.

Kumar said the company has already completed the tape-out of its first chipset and is now entering the production and commercialisation phase.

“The current funding round is what we call a pre-production round. It is aimed at taking the chip from engineering to commercialization,” the cofounder added.

The company expects the next few quarters to focus on firmware validation, field trials, certifications and customer testing before scaling up deployment.

Kumar said customer conversations are already underway across Indian OEMs, global OEMs and solution builders. However, he did not disclose commercial partnerships.

Investor views

The company's investors said BigEndian’s execution capability and successful tape-out differentiated it in a capital-intensive sector. “The semiconductor landscape is moving from scale to specialization, with increasing emphasis on secure, domain-specific chip design,” said Rajnish Kapur, managing partner at IAN Alpha Fund. “BigEndian is building at the intersection of AI, edge computing and hardware-level security.”

Ben Mathias, managing partner at Vertex Ventures SEA & India, said the company had managed to tape out a chip “in record time” since Vertex first invested around 18 months ago.

The startup raised $3 million in early stage capital in 2024.