India-linked deep-tech startup optoML has raised $1.8 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Bluehill.VC and a99, signalling investor confidence in its effort to build energy-efficient AI hardware. The funding arrives as demand for AI-optimised chips grows across data centres and edge devices.
OptoML, founded by Saravana Maruthamuthu, is a fabless semiconductor company developing analog-in-memory compute architectures combined with optical interconnects. The startup says this hybrid approach can sharply reduce energy use and latency compared with conventional digital accelerators, potentially delivering up to 50x higher energy efficiency for certain AI workloads.
Funding to Speed Product Development and Scale the Team
The new capital will be used to expand optoML’s engineering team and accelerate development of its next-generation chips. A key technical milestone already achieved is a 12-nanometre tape-out at TSMC — the last design step before fabrication — which validates the company’s architecture moving from research into practical implementation.
With tape-out completed, optoML is advancing into testing, validation and preparation for commercial deployment. Investors have highlighted the startup’s potential to address critical bottlenecks in AI infrastructure such as energy efficiency, latency and bandwidth constraints that increasingly limit conventional chip designs as model sizes and data throughput grow.
Linking Global Fabrication with India’s Design Ecosystem
Though headquartered in Singapore, optoML maintains development links with Bengaluru, reflecting India’s growing role in global semiconductor design. The company has partnered with Kaynes Semiconductor for assembly and testing once wafers return from fabrication, integrating international foundry capabilities with India’s electronics manufacturing base.
The funding round underscores rising investor interest in semiconductor and AI-hardware firms with Indian roots or operations. It also aligns with government efforts to build domestic capabilities in chip design and manufacturing through stimulus and incentive programmes aimed at enhancing self-reliance in semiconductors.
Next Steps and Industry Context
With validated design work, strategic backers and fresh capital, optoML’s immediate priorities are product refinement, deepening industry partnerships and progressing toward commercial shipment of its energy-efficient AI chips. Success will depend on performance in silicon validation, yield optimisation, and integration with software and system partners.
As AI adoption widens across sectors such as healthcare, automotive, fintech and enterprise IT, specialised compute hardware demand is expected to rise. For a capital-intensive field like semiconductors, this Pre-Series A round is modest in size but important as an early endorsement of optoML’s technology and market potential. Observers will monitor how the startup translates this momentum into scalable commercial outcomes in coming years.
