Chennai-based fabless semiconductor design startup Mindgrove Technologies has secured USD eight million in a Series A funding round, nearly quadrupling its seed round from early 2023. The round was co-led by Rocketship.vc and Speciale Invest, with participation from Mela Ventures, Peak XV Partners, Whiteboard Capital, Nishchay Goel, and Anshul Goel.

The funding will be utilised for the commercial production of its flagship Secure IoT microcontroller SoC, team expansion, and bolstering in-house engineering. Secure IoT, a 28 nm chip launched as a prototype earlier in 2023, is designed for smart devices like watches, printers, meters, and PoS machines. CEO Shashwath T R anticipates commercial sales by mid-2025, with increasing customer interest in locally designed chips.

Mindgrove has also secured Rs 15 crore under the Indian government’s design linked incentive (DLI) scheme for developing Vision SoC, a chip targeting high-performance edge computing and vision processing applications like CCTV cameras and dashcams. Currently a 40-member team, the company aims to grow to 100 employees within two years, focusing on technical roles for Vision SoC and sales roles for Secure IoT.

Mindgrove is incubated by IIT-Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation and IIT-M Incubation Cell.