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SiMa.ai raised a $150M Series C at a $1.45B valuation, co-led by Fidelity and Amplify, to scale its physical AI chips and software platform against Nvidia.
Key Takeaways
- SiMa.ai closed a $150M Series C at a $1.45B valuation on September 28, 2026.
- Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify co-led the oversubscribed round.
- Total capital raised reaches $500M; next-generation silicon is due in the first half of 2028.
Lead
SiMa.ai, a San Jose chipmaker that sells silicon and software for AI on robots, cars and drones, announced a $150M Series C on September 28, 2026. The round values the company at $1.45B and lifts total funding to $500M. Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify Partners co-led, and the company described the round as oversubscribed.
The money goes to two projects: Palette Neat, an agentic software environment for building and deploying physical AI, and a next-generation chip targeting 1,000 dense TOPS of compute. SiMa.ai has scheduled that chip for the first half of 2028.
Who Else Invested in the Round?
Four new investors joined: AllianceBernstein, Baron Capital, J.P. Morgan and the State of Michigan. Existing backers Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital, +ND Capital, Point72 and StepStone Group also took part.
The mix leans toward mutual funds, hedge funds and public-market allocators rather than classic venture firms. Fidelity, Baron and AllianceBernstein typically invest late, when they expect a company to reach an IPO or a large strategic sale. The round therefore reads as a bet on a listing path, though SiMa.ai has announced no such plan.
What Does SiMa.ai Actually Sell?
SiMa.ai sells a chip-plus-software stack for running AI models on devices at the edge, where power budgets are tight. Its current product is Modalix, a second-generation multimodal system-on-chip built on TSMC's 6nm process. The company lists it at 50 TOPS under 10W and says it is in production.
The pitch is power efficiency and compatibility. SiMa.ai claims Modalix delivers twice the performance of Nvidia's Jetson Orin at one-fifth the power, and that it is pin-compatible with Nvidia modules, which lowers the cost of swapping it into an existing design. Those figures come from the company and have not been independently verified in the materials released with the round.
Named customers and partners include Bosch, Emerson, TRUMPF, Intrinsic, Micron, Synopsys, STIGA, Kontron, AVerMedia and L&T Technology Services. SiMa.ai says revenue quadrupled between 2024 and 2025 but has not disclosed absolute revenue.
How Does the Valuation Compare With the Last Round?
The $1.45B valuation sits above where the company stood a year earlier, but the earlier figure is not reported consistently. SiMa.ai added $85M in summer 2025, taking total funding to $355M at that point. The new $150M brings the total to about $500M.
A step-up in roughly 14 months suggests investors are paying for the physical AI theme as much as for shipped revenue. With undisclosed revenue, the multiple cannot be calculated. That leaves the valuation resting on the growth rate and the 2028 roadmap.
Can SiMa.ai Compete With Nvidia in Physical AI?
SiMa.ai faces a rival that already ships far more compute. Nvidia's Jetson Thor is on the market with up to 2,070 TOPS at 130W, roughly double the target SiMa.ai has set for a chip that will not arrive until 2028. Nvidia also owns the dominant developer toolchain, which is the stickiest part of any edge AI platform.
SiMa.ai's counter is the lower end of the power curve. Drones, small robots and cockpit systems often cannot carry a 130W module, and there a 10W part with simpler deployment has a case. Palette Neat is the company's attempt to close the software gap, claiming it cuts deployment from months to days or hours. That claim will be tested by customers in production, not by a funding announcement.
The addressable volume is real. Counterpoint Research projects 145 million cumulative physical AI device shipments across robotics, automotive and drones between 2025 and 2035. Most of those units will be cost- and power-constrained, which is the segment SiMa.ai targets.
What Comes Next for SiMa.ai?
The next milestones are commercial and technical. Investors will want absolute revenue figures, design wins in automotive or humanoid programs, and evidence that Modalix scales beyond pilots. The 2028 chip also has to arrive on schedule, since a slip would leave a gap while Nvidia's roadmap keeps advancing.
If revenue growth holds, a public-market route becomes plausible given the investor base. If it stalls, a $1.45B private mark with crossover-style holders becomes harder to defend in a later round.
Outlook
SiMa.ai enters the next phase with $500M in total funding, a shipping second-generation chip and a software product aimed at the hardest part of edge AI adoption. The valuation reflects expectations more than disclosed results, and Nvidia's lead in compute and tooling remains the central obstacle. The 2028 silicon and the first audited signs of revenue scale will show whether the round was priced on substance.
