Eta Compute Inc., the leader in energy-efficient endpoint AI solutions for intelligent sensing anywhere, announced it closed its Series C funding of $12.5 million, bringing the company’s total funds raised to $31.9 million. The round was led by Synaptics Incorporated along with participation from existing investors. Satish Ganesan, Chief Strategy Officer at Synaptics will join the Eta Compute Board of Directors.
“We are delighted and privileged to have Satish as the newest member of the Eta Compute board,” said Dr. Ted Tewksbury, CEO of Eta Compute. “He brings a wealth of strategic, business and technology experience and we look forward to collaborating with Synaptics to address the multi-billion dollar opportunity in Edge AI.”
Additionally, Eta Compute announced a co-development and co-marketing partnership with Synaptics. The partnership gives Eta Compute access to Synaptics’ just announced ultra-low power Katana Edge AI SoC, and Synaptics access to Eta Compute’s TENSAI® Flow software and neural network compilers, models and AI applications. The joint partnership accelerates the introduction of innovative ultra-low power audio- and vision-based edge AI solutions for smart home consumer IoT markets, and for smart industrial IoT (IIoT) applications in buildings, factories, and cities.
“Synaptics continues to aggressively expand into high growth markets and applications in the IoT space,” said Satish Ganesan, Chief Strategy Officer at Synaptics. “Eta Compute is a recognized leader in energy-efficient edge inferencing. The combination of Synaptics’ low power Katana Edge AI SoC coupled with Eta Compute’s power optimized machine learning compiler and software enables us to deliver the industry’s most power-efficient AI solutions at the edge.” Earlier this year, Eta Compute introduced TENSAI®, the world’s most energy efficient endpoint AI platform, consisting of the ECM3532 neural sensor processor, the TENSAI® Flow software and neural network compiler, and a growing family of board-level solutions and optimized neural networks. While Eta Compute will continue to develop its TENSAI®AI software platform, it will expand its focus to complete systems that address its customers’ unmet need for commercially deployable whole product solutions.
“We’re seeing growing customer interest in our ECM3532 processor and AI sensor boards for a wide range of energy-constrained IoT applications requiring multi-year battery life and energy harvesting. Partnering with Synaptics for our next generation silicon enables us to rapidly and cost-effectively extend TENSAI® into new applications requiring higher performance sound, image and sensor processing,” added Dr. Tewksbury. “Combined with our new funding, we will now be able to expand our available market, grow design wins and accelerate the introduction of new modules and software that satisfy customers’ unmet need for easy-to-use, ready-to-deploy system solutions.”