Agrani Labs, a Bengaluru-based semiconductor startup building AI inference chips, is in the final stages of closing a $108-110 million funding round at a valuation of roughly $350 million, people aware of the matter told the Economic Times. The round, in the works for several months, is expected to close within the next month. No investor or the company has confirmed a signed deal.
Peak XV Partners is leading the round and is expected to contribute more than half the total, with Google, Samsung Ventures and Stargazer - the investment vehicle launched by Groww's founders - also expected to participate. Moneycontrol, which values the deal at $300-350 million, reports the round has grown as more investors joined: it first reported in September that Agrani was raising $50 million, and the Economic Times reported in early October that the company was in talks to raise Rs 800-850 crore from Samsung, 360 ONE and Peak XV.
Agrani was founded in 2024 by former Intel and AMD executives Dheemanth Nagaraj, Ashok Jagannathan, Srikanth Nimmagadda and Rajesh Vivekanandham. The company is building AI inference chips compatible with Nvidia's CUDA software stack - the ecosystem layer that makes Nvidia hard to displace - and aims to compete with US-based chipmakers such as SambaNova Systems and Groq. It raised an $8 million seed from Peak XV in June 2025 at a valuation of around $35 million, meaning the reported round would multiply its valuation roughly tenfold in about 16 months.
If it closes at the reported size, the round would rank among the largest in India's deeptech ecosystem, after the likes of Pixxel, Skyroot and Sarvam. Stargazer's participation would be its first bet, and a marker of consumer-internet founders turning their wealth toward Indian deeptech.
The strategic logic is straightforward: inference is where AI compute demand is heading as models move from training to deployment, and India currently designs almost none of the chips it consumes. A CUDA-compatible inference chip designed in Bengaluru is a direct attempt at the hardest gap in the stack.
FundForge Insight: the valuation math is the risk - roughly ten times the seed mark in 16 months prices a chip that still has to be designed, taped out and won against entrenched US rivals. But the investor list is itself the signal: Peak XV doubling down, Google and Samsung Ventures joining, and Groww's founders making deeptech their first bet says serious capital now believes India can design silicon, not just consume it. Watch for the close, and then for a tape-out date. Sources: Economic Times (November 4, 2026), Moneycontrol (November 3, 2026). This is not investment advice.
