Synthara, a Swiss semiconductor startup, has raised $11 million in funding and European and Swiss grants. The round is led by Vsquared Ventures (invested in Neura Robotics and cylib), with OTB Ventures, Hermann Hauser’s Onsight Ventures, Deep Tech Labs, along with existing investors such as High-Tech Gründerfonds, DeepIE, Excellis, ZKB, and first investor and early believer Sandeep Raju.
The company has also secured substantial funding from Innosuisse and SERI, including a recent CHF 2.5 million Swiss Accelerator grant to advance
How will it use the investment?
This funding will enable Synthara to introduce its patent-pending product, ComputeRAM, to embedded computing applications.
Patrick Tucci, Principal at Vsquared Ventures said: “We are about to witness a paradigm shift in computing, with in-memory-computing leading the charge. The bottleneck of data movement is especially noticeable in edge applications. Here, smart devices need to run complex, concurrent algorithms. This problem is compounded by space limitations and low power requirements. To continue advancing and fostering innovation, we require high-performance, drop-in solutions such as Synthara’s ComputeRAM. We look forward to partnering with Manu and the team at Synthara as they unlock new opportunities by bringing in-memory-computing to market at scale.”
Karol Szubstarski, Partner at OTB Ventures, added: “The emerging in-memory computing (IMC) paradigm is set to transform the industry, enabling it to bypass the data transfer bottlenecks in conventional chip architectures that affect energy consumption, performance & latency. Synthara enables easy integration of the underlying principles of IMC technology into existing chip design without any disruptive alterations to the architecture. As such, the company is very well positioned to spearhead the change within the industry, providing immediate performance gains at a limited energy budget across multiple product categories and unlocking new use cases (e.g. real-time voice processing on the edge in hearing aids). We are super excited to embark on this journey with the Synthara team.”
New advisor on board
In addition to the investment, Hermann Hauser joined the company as an advisor.
Hermann Hauser, founder of Acron Computers and ARM and advisor to Synthara, said: “The seamless integration of in-memory computing into existing chip designs is a game-changer, significantly enhancing capabilities and performance. This advancement is particularly relevant for AI applications, where the need for faster, more efficient processing is paramount. I believe we are at the knee of the curve, poised to enter an era of unprecedented growth. This technology will serve an ever-expanding market, driving innovation and enabling breakthroughs across various industries.”
Who is behind Synthara?
Founded in 2019 as a spin-off from the Institute of Neuroinformatics at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, Synthara is based on the doctoral research of Dr. Manu V. Nair and Dr. Alessandro Aimar.
Supported by Silicon Catalyst, SNSF Bridge, Venture Labs, and Intel Ignite, the company recently introduced the patent-pending ComputeRAM, targeting embedded applications such as wearables, robotics, and smart sensing.
What challenge does it tackle?
Currently, there is an explosion of AI-rich embedded applications such as robotics, sensing, and wearables, with the space worth over $200 billion and growing at over 15% CAGR. However, these applications are too complex for conventional embedded chips.
Embedded device makers are sorting through an increasingly complex ecosystem of hardware and software products, resulting in increasing costs and time to market. These problems cannot be addressed without a paradigm shift in computing technology.
By enhancing conventional on-chip memories with computing capabilities, Synthara’s ComputeRAM enables micro-controllers that are 100x better, both in terms of energy efficiency and latency. These high-performance and flexible microcontroller chips can address a broad set of AI-rich applications, thereby lowering costs, and time to market, creating new opportunities for the chipmakers and device makers.
Manu V Nair, Co-Founder and CEO of Synthara, said: “With ComputeRAM, we are looking to enable a new breed of feature-rich products that are only limited by the creativity of the developers. This founding round empowers us to work closely with our early adopter community as they develop game-changing chips and devices.”
“The rise of AI is a societal and economic disruption on par with the great industrial revolutions of the past,” commented Synthara’s Founder and CTO Dr. Alessandro Aimar. “As traditional semiconductor companies struggle to adapt to this new reality, Synthara aims to establish Europe as the leading force in this transformation and become the global reference for AI and advanced computing hardware.”
What do we think about Synthara?
Having raised $11 million and supported by distinguished entrepreneurs and industry experts, including Sean Mitchell, Hermann Hauser, Ron Black, and Joerg Sperling, who serve in key leadership and advisory roles, Synthara aims to increase the compute performance of embedded chips by orders of magnitude. The company is ambitious to bring its in-memory computing to the mass market with this round.
