Silicon Valley-headquartered embedded edge machine learning system-on-chip company SiMa.ai has raised an additional $70 million (Rs 583 crore) of funding led by Maverick Capital, with participation from Point72 and Jericho, as well as existing investors Amplify Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Fidelity Management, Lip-Bu Tan and others.
With this, the company has raised $270 million (Rs 2,250 crore) till date, which it says will utilise to continue meeting customer demand for edge AI/ML with its first-generation Machine Learning System-on-Chip (MLSoC) while accelerating the delivery of its second-generation MLSoC for release in Q1 of 2025.
SiMa.ai says with the release of the second-generation MLSoC it will unveil one software-centric platform for all edge AI. The ‘one platform for all edge AI’ scales with customers as their AL/ML journey evolves from computer vision, to transformers to multi-modal generative AI.
The rapid proliferation of generative AI is simplifying the way we interact with AI/ML, namely through multi-modal inputs such as text-to-speech, text-to-image, speech-to-text, speech-to-image, audio-to-image, image-to-image, and image-to-video. Edge devices such as robots, drones, diagnostic machines, autonomous vehicles and more must be equipped to handle this new, more collaborative interface. The first-generation SiMa.ai MLSoC delivers industry leading performance and efficiency for vision-centric edge inference. Future generations will power and process any modality customers prefer with even greater performance and power efficiency. Uniquely designed to help customers capitalize on the opportunity that the shift of generative AI to the edge represents, SiMa.ai MLSoC’s unique fusion of hardware and software processes any model size or type on its silicon architecture.
Krishna Rangasayee, Founder & CEO, SiMa.ai said, “AI — particularly the rapid rise of generative AI — is fundamentally reshaping the way that humans and machines work together. Our customers are poised to benefit from giving sight, sound and speech to their edge devices, which is exactly what our next generation MLSoC is designed to do. We have established undeniable technology leadership with our first generation MLSoC and with that momentum, also recognised the imminent need to equip our customers with one software centric platform that supports all modalities from computer vision to GenAI. To that end, we’re accelerating our ability to execute and have strengthened our investor base even further with the addition of Maverick Capital, Point72 and others, as we remain laser focused on powering the edge the world relies on.”
Andrew Homan, Senior MD, Maverick Capital said, “The computational intensity of generative AI has precipitated a paradigm shift in data centre architecture. The next phase in this evolution will be widespread adoption of AI at the edge. Just as the data centre has been revolutionised, the edge computing landscape is poised for a complete transformation. SiMa.ai possesses the essential trifecta of a best-in-class team, cutting-edge technology, and forward momentum, positioning it as a key player for customers traversing this tectonic shift. We’re excited to join forces with SiMa.ai to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
