Deeptech startup AGNIT Semiconductors has raised $2.6 million (around INR 24 crore) in an extension of its seed funding round led by Shastra VC.
The round also included investments from existing backers 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock.
The startup will use the funds to buy 1 lakh gallium nitride (GaN) components over the next two years and expand its business into telecom infrastructure and high-efficiency power semiconductor devices.
“We now have about three pilots running and the fourth one should kick off by the end of this month,” Hareesh Chandrasekar, cofounder and chief executive of Agnit Semiconductors said.
“We were trying to develop some components for EVs as well but we put that on hold and we decided to focus on the strategic sector market mainly because the tailwind seemed to be stronger, there was a lot of customer interest and gallium nitride is more of an export-restricted technology in these sectors,” Chandrasekar said.
“Our broader philosophy is that gallium nitride should eventually go into many more use cases and even replace silicon-based power amplifiers in some radio-frequency applications. If that transition is going to happen at scale, then GaN will eventually need to approach silicon-like economics,” he added.
Ashis Nayak, Founding Partner at Shastra VC, said, “Gallium Nitride is becoming a foundational technology for modern high-performance electronics. AGNIT is one of India’s most compelling IP-led semiconductor stories with a strong patent portfolio across GaN materials, wafer processes and RF device design, built on over a decade of research at IISc. We are proud to partner with the team as they scale this capability and position India as a serious player in GaN-based semiconductors.”
AGNIT Semiconductors was founded in 2019 by industry professionals Chandrasekar, Digbijoy Neelim Nath, Madhusudan Atre, Mayank Shrivastava, Muralidharan Rangarajan, Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, and Srinivasan Raghavan.
The Bengaluru-based startup focuses on gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology. It designs and produces GaN materials (wafers) and electronic components, mainly for radio-frequency (RF) applications.
Currently, the company is running several pilot projects with customers in strategic sectors, and it expects at least two of these projects to move into large-scale production soon.
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