Homegrown semiconductor startups raise $206 million since 2022: Report

Funding accelerated in 2026 despite fewer rounds, as investors backed mature chip ventures and government-supported companies attracted private and strategic capital

A new report by venture capital (VC) firm Speciale Invest and startup association Startup Policy Forum finds that homegrown semiconductor startups have raised approximately $206 million across 51 rounds since 2022.

 

The report, titled ‘Indian Semiconductor Startup Landscape 2026’, said that semiconductor startups raised $61.9 million in H1 2026 alone, equivalent to 81 per cent of the $76.6 million raised during the whole of 2025.

 

The number of funding rounds fell from 16 in 2024 to 13 in 2025 and seven in H1 2026, even as capital deployed rose sharply. This suggests investors are concentrating money behind companies that have moved further along product development and commercialisation, rather than spreading bets across a wider set of early-stage startups.

 

 

The report finds a growing link between government-backed semiconductor programmes and private venture funding. Of the 24 chip-design projects supported under the Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) programme, 14 have subsequently raised institutional venture capital, together pulling in $100.8 million across their first and second rounds.

 

Six of those companies have already closed follow-on rounds worth a combined $53.6 million. Four companies, including C2i Semiconductors, NetraSemi, Morphing Machines and Mindgrove Technologies, account for approximately 56 per cent of all private capital raised by DLI-backed companies.

 

According to the report, another sign of the sector’s maturity is the pace at which some semiconductor companies are raising subsequent rounds. Multiple startups have moved from seed to Series A in seven to 22 months. Seven recent Series A rounds highlighted in the report total $73.7 million, roughly one-third of all semiconductor startup capital raised in India since 2022.

 

Strategic investors are also playing a larger role. Companies including Zoho and TDK Ventures have anchored funding rounds, while global semiconductor companies are increasingly moving beyond operating captive R&D centres in India to taking equity positions in Indian startups. The report notes that strategic capital brings more than money, including access to fabs, tool credits, reference customers and design partnerships.

 

The report identifies a broadening of India’s semiconductor startup base. The first wave of companies focused largely on digital, RISC-V and edge SoCs. Newer companies are emerging in photonics, power and compound semiconductors, fab tooling and metrology, AI data-centre silicon, AI-led semiconductor design workflows, and analogue AI inference.