BigEndian Semiconductors, a startup based in Bengaluru that designs chips, has raised US$6 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by IAN Alpha Fund.
Existing investors like Vertex Ventures SEA and India, IvyCap Ventures, and some strategic angel investors also joined the round.
The company said it may keep the funding round open and could raise another $4 million if needed.
BigEndian plans to use the new funds to launch its first system-on-chip (SoC) for surveillance devices.
It will also use the money to improve its products, work more closely with chip manufacturers, and develop different product designs.
“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.
“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.”
Kumar said the company has finished designing its first chipset and is now moving into manufacturing and commercialisation it.
“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 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.”
Founded in 2024 by Sunil Kumar, Renuka Prasad, Dinesh Annayya, Kanagaraju Ponnusamy and Jansen Cheng, BigEndian Semiconductors is an Indian startup that designs high-performance and secure chips (SoCs) for global markets. Its chips are used in areas like surveillance, telecom, IoT, and enterprise systems.
The company brings together skills in hardware and software, including chip design, system architecture, and embedded software, to create reliable chip solutions for both security and business needs.
Since BigEndian follows a fabless model (it doesn’t have its own factories), making these chips requires a lot of money, strong technical skills, and the ability to take early risks—areas where India is still developing.
As global supply chains evolve, the company is managing complex tasks like chip design, testing, and preparing for manufacturing, while also building its own technology.
With partners in Taiwan and India, BigEndian aims to handle the entire chip development process—from design to final product launch.
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