Japan’s EdgeCortix Closes $20 Million Funding Round, Collaborates with Renesas Electronics

EdgeCortix, a Japan-based fabless semiconductor development and design company specializing in edge artificial intelligence (AI), announced the successful conclusion of its $20 million funding round. EdgeCortix has also partnered with Renesas Electronics Corporation, a prominent provider of advanced semiconductor solutions. 

Leading this financing endeavor were Japan’s venture capital firm, SBI Investment Co. Ltd., and Global Hands-On VC (GHOVC), a collaborative venture capital entity with a track record of successful semiconductor investments that span the Japan-United States nexus. Renesas Electronics Corporation also joined in this funding initiative. 

EdgeCortix has outlined its strategic plans for utilizing the freshly acquired funding. The company plans to channel these resources into the development and launch of the next generation of SAKURA hardware products. Simultaneously, EdgeCortix aims to strengthen its global presence by expanding its sales and marketing capabilities, an essential step in realizing its vision.

Furthermore, EdgeCortix intends to strengthen its engineering capacity within Japan, reinforcing its roots while broadening its global footprint by establishing a new development center in India. 

The company also plans to selectively recruit top-tier talent to advance its AI capabilities, particularly in critical technology roles. 

EdgeCortix, a key player in edge AI processors, was founded by CEO Dr. Sakyasingha Dasgupta. The company’s inception was rooted in creating a high-speed yet power-efficient, flexible AI-focused processor. 

This approach adopted a software-first strategy. Presently, EdgeCortix has a portfolio of proprietary software and AI chip products designed to expedite AI inference tasks for various applications, including computer vision, natural language processing, and generative AI. 

Notably, these processes are executed at low power consumption and with minimal latency, catering to the intricate requirements of systems operating at the edge, a domain often referred to colloquially as “the edge.”

EdgeCortix has unveiled three distinctive products: MERA, an adaptable compiler software framework compatible with multiple hardware platforms; Dynamic Neural Accelerator (DNA), a scalable, runtime-reconfigurable neural network processor intellectual property (IP); and the energy-efficient SAKURA AI co-processor device. 

Collectively, these offerings constitute an integrated solution tailored to real-time edge AI demands. EdgeCortix’s solutions demonstrate an edge over conventional GPUs and CPUs, delivering up to 50 times better energy efficiency and ten times better performance in terms of TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second). 

EdgeCortix Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sakyasingha Dasgupta expressed excitement about the new endeavor. “The ability to bring AI acceleration capabilities into existing, complex heterogeneous computing systems at low cost, with low latency and industry-leading energy efficiency, is our mission and the fundamental value proposition of EdgeCortix’s products and technology,” he said. 

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