SiMa.ai raises $150M at a $1.45B valuation to build edge chips for humanoids and drones

SiMa.ai, which designs machine-learning chips for devices at the edge, closed a $150 million Series C that values the company at $1.45 billion, it said on September 28. Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify co-led the round. Existing backers including Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital and Point72 joined, and AllianceBernstein, Baron Capital, J.P. Morgan and the State of Michigan came in as new investors. Total funding now stands at $500 million.

The company says it will spend the money on its Palette software for AI agents and on next-generation hardware. That silicon is planned for the first half of 2028 at 1,000 dense TOPS and will be offered as licensable IP, chiplets and complete chips. SiMa.ai lists humanoid robots, drones, driver assistance and in-car AI as target markets, and says revenue roughly quadrupled from 2024 to 2025.

Humanoid makers need a lot of on-board compute to run vision-language-action models without a round trip to the cloud, and today most reach for NVIDIA's Jetson modules. A well-funded alternative that sells IP and chiplets as well as finished chips gives robot companies a path to custom silicon without starting from scratch. The 2028 timeline, though, means today's humanoid programs will ship before the new chip is available.