Raja Koduri’s Oxmiq Labs raises $35M to license custom AI silicon
AI silicon startup Oxmiq Labs has raised $35 million in a Series A funding round led by Fundomo and Samsung Catalyst Fund. The company, led by former Intel executive Raja Koduri, intends to use the capital to scale its proprietary OxCore architecture and OxQuilt computing fabric designed to lower the costs of custom AI hardware development.
Key Takeaways
- Series A round led by Samsung Catalyst Fund and Fundomo brings total funding to $60 million.
- OxCore architecture integrates a CUDA-compatible GPU, a tensor engine, and an orchestration CPU into one licensable block.
- OxQuilt computing fabric allows designers to mix-and-match chiplets, memory types, and interconnects within a single package.
- OxPython software stack enables execution of existing CUDA and PyTorch code on OxCore without manual modification.
- Board expansion includes industry pioneer Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent, alongside advisor Dr. Valluri Rao.
Why It Matters
Oxmiq Labs is positioning itself as the 'Arm of AI,' shifting the market away from capital-intensive, multi-year chip programs toward a flexible licensing model. By collapsing the GPU, CPU, and tensor components into a single IP block, the company addresses the high cost of custom silicon that currently limits AI hardware innovation to hyperscalers and top-tier chipmakers. For the streaming and media ecosystem, this lowering of design barriers could accelerate the arrival of highly specialized, low-power inference hardware for edge-based video processing and agentic AI workloads. Watch for the delivery of Oxmiq’s first production-ready IP batch to determine if its software-first approach can truly erode Nvidia’s dominance in the custom accelerator market.
Additional Context
The rise of custom silicon is reshaping the semiconductor landscape as hyperscalers move to reduce their reliance on merchant GPUs. Per Yahoo Finance in June 2026, demand for application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) is accelerating, driven by the need for power efficiency in specialized AI workloads that general-purpose hardware cannot match. This trend has fueled a record year for semiconductor investment; according to Crunchbase data from January 2026, U.S. semiconductor startup funding reached $6.2 billion in 2025, an 85% year-over-year increase. High-profile rounds for companies like Etched, which raised $800 million for transformer-specific chips, and Cerebras, which secured $1.1 billion, underscore the scale of capital competing with incumbent leaders. Simultaneously, the technical focus has shifted toward chiplet-based architectures and advanced packaging to manage costs. Per Silicon Analysts in June 2026, memory components now represent nearly 50% of total manufacturing costs for leading AI accelerators like the Nvidia B200, making Oxmiq’s focus on 'near-memory compute' and software portability increasingly relevant. The addition of Jim Keller to Oxmiq’s board further validates this modular approach. Keller, who leads Tenstorrent and previously designed architectures for Apple and Tesla, has been a vocal proponent of open-source hardware standards. His involvement, alongside technical veterans from Intel and AMD, suggests a strategic push to create a cross-industry infrastructure that circumvents the proprietary software moats currently defining the hardware market.
Read full article at siliconangle.com
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