Investors are concentrating money behind companies that have moved further along product development and commercialisation
Indian semiconductor startups have raised approximately $206 million across 51 funding rounds since 2022, according to the Indian Semiconductor Startup Landscape 2026, released by venture capital firm Speciale Invest in partnership with the Startup Policy Forum (SPF).The report highlights that semiconductor startups raised $61.9 million in H1 2026 alone — already equivalent to 81 per cent of the $76.6 million raised across the whole of 2025.The number of funding rounds, however, fell from 16 in 2024 to 13 in 2025 and 7 in H1 2026, even as capital deployed rose sharply. Investors are concentrating money behind companies that have moved further along product development and commercialisation, rather than spreading bets across a wider set of early-stage startups.Maturing SectorThe report finds a growing link between government-backed semiconductor programmes and private venture funding. Of the 24 chip-design projects supported under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) programme, 14 have raised institutional venture capital, together pulling in $100.8 million across their first and second rounds.Six of those companies have already closed follow-on rounds worth a combined $53.6 million. C2i Semiconductors, NetraSemi, Morphing Machines and Mindgrove Technologies account for approximately 56 per cent of all private capital raised by DLI-backed companies.Another sign of the sector’s maturing is the pace at which some semiconductor companies are raising subsequent rounds. Multiple startups have moved from seed to Series A in seven to 22 months. Seven recent Series A rounds highlighted in the report total $73.7 million — roughly one-third of all semiconductor startup capital raised in India since 2022.Arjun Rao, Co-founder and General Partner, Speciale Invest, said, “The next generation of investible semiconductor companies in India will not come from chip design alone. We see significant room to build across equipment and materials, design IP and EDA, analog and RF, advanced packaging and AI infrastructure. For India to produce its first $100 million-plus semiconductor product exits, these companies will need to combine deep technical IP with strong founding teams, early anchor customers and access to enough growth capital to stay the course through long product cycles. That is the next stage of maturity we will be watching closely.”Widening BaseThe report identifies a broadening of India’s semiconductor startup base. The first wave of companies focused largely on digital, RF, RISC-V and edge SoCs. Newer companies are emerging in photonics, power and compound semiconductors, fab tooling and metrology, AI data-centre silicon, AI-led semiconductor design workflows, and analog AI inference.Speciale Invest sees some of India’s biggest white spaces over the coming decade in equipment and materials, design IP and EDA, and analog and RF — areas where domestic demand exists but the startup ecosystem remains relatively underdeveloped. The India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 (ISM 2.0) could widen that opportunity further, particularly across fab-adjacent tooling, compound semiconductors, advanced packaging, RISC-V IP, AI-assisted EDA and verification tooling.The report was released by Arjun Rao, Co-founder and General Partner at Speciale Invest, in the presence of S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), at Semicon Baatcheet, an event organised by SPF.Published on August 12, 2026
