Semiconductor startup Calligo Technologies has secured $1.1 million in a pre-series A funding round led by Seafund and Artha Venture Fund. The funding will support the development of its second-generation silicon chip and platform aimed at High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.
Founded by Anantha Kinnal, Rajaraman Subramanian, and Vinay N Hebbali, CalligoTech focuses on addressing fundamental performance bottlenecks in computing for large-scale modelling, simulation, and AI training. The startup’s approach is based on POSIT, a novel real-number representation that allows for reduced computing bit requirements while improving accuracy and energy efficiency.
Next-gen chip development and global expansion
The newly raised capital will primarily be allocated towards research and development efforts for the upcoming ver2.0 of its silicon chip—a 64-core POSIT-enabled RISC-V system-on-chip. The company also intends to expand its engineering team and strengthen collaborations with system integrators, OEMs, and ODMs.
In the past year, CalligoTech has engaged with US universities, national laboratories, and supercomputing centres to support its international expansion. It has also completed and shipped its first silicon chip (ver1.0), built an accelerator board, and soft-launched operations in the US.
The startup has modified widely-used compilers and programming frameworks—such as C/C++, gFortran, and Python—to support POSIT without requiring source-code changes. Its current offering, TUNGA, an octa-core RISC-V processor integrated into an accelerator card, is already being tested by researchers for enhanced performance in HPC and AI applications.
Potential in POSIT-enabled computing
Narendra Bhandari, general partner at Seafund, noted that CalligoTech has successfully completed the chip design-to-product cycle with its first silicon and is now positioned to advance next-generation silicon for commercialisation.
Anirudh A Damani, managing partner at Artha Venture Fund, described POSIT as a potential new standard in computing. “With AI and HPC workloads growing exponentially, computing efficiency is more critical than ever,” he said. “Calligo’s POSIT-based chips solve fundamental performance bottlenecks, enabling faster, more precise, and power-efficient computing at scale.”
CalligoTech plans to introduce its next-gen chip for high-volume manufacturing over the next 12 to 18 months, allowing customers to evaluate its performance and scalability.
According to Custom Market Insights, India’s semiconductor market—valued at $6.67 billion in 2024—is projected to more than double by 2032.
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