Kandou AI, a Swiss fabless semiconductor company that designs high-speed connectivity chips, announced on 23 March 2026 that it had raised $225m (about CHF 180m) in an oversubscribed Series A round. The round was led by Maverick Silicon.
SoftBank Group, Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems and Alchip Technologies joined as strategic investors, and several existing shareholders also took part, according to the company. EPFL, where the company was founded, noted that Synopsys and Cadence compete with each other in chip-design software and IP.
Kandou AI did not disclose a valuation or how much it had raised in total before this round.
“This funding round is a clear validation of our vision from our partners and customers.”Srujan Linga, Co-founder and CEO, Kandou AI
What Kandou AI does
Kandou AI started at EPFL in 2011 under the name Kandou Bus. It was co-founded by Amin Shokrollahi, a professor emeritus at EPFL's School of Computer and Communication Sciences who serves as chief technology officer, and Srujan Linga, the chief executive. The company is based in Saint-Sulpice, in the canton of Vaud, according to a deal note from law firm Niederer Kraft Frey.
The company builds connectivity products for data centres, AI systems and consumer electronics. Its patented signalling and SerDes (serialiser/deserialiser) technologies are designed to move data faster and further over copper connections while using less energy. The company says more than 20 million silicon units using its technology have shipped.
Its pitch is that AI performance is now held back less by raw compute than by how quickly data can move between processors and memory. Initially it is targeting AI systems and high-speed connections inside server racks, with plans to move into wider AI infrastructure over time, Pulse 2.0 reported.
Who invested
Maverick Silicon led the round. Manish Muthal, a senior managing director at the firm, said in the announcement that AI performance is increasingly limited by how efficiently data moves between compute and memory.
The strategic investors cover several layers of the chip industry. Synopsys and Cadence supply the software and IP blocks used to design chips, Alchip is a chip design services company, and SoftBank is a large investor in AI infrastructure. Executives from Synopsys and Cadence said in the release that data movement between chips had become a bottleneck for scaling AI infrastructure.
Niederer Kraft Frey, based in Zurich, said it advised several of the investors on the transaction.
What the money is for
Kandou AI said it would use the funding to ramp up manufacturing of its AI connectivity chips, deepen partnerships with hyperscale and AI infrastructure customers, and develop its next generation of chips and IP aimed at multi-terabit connectivity. EPFL reported that the company plans to deliver new products to partners in the 2027 timeframe.
Before the round, the company said it had completed the tapeout of its next-generation SerDes technology, grown its retimer business, opened a design centre in Hyderabad, India, and added several industry executives to its leadership team.
Shokrollahi told EPFL that demand from AI had created a large need for bandwidth between chips. Linga called the round a validation of the company's vision from its partners and customers.
Company website: kandou.ai