Pranav Hotkar
Bengaluru, India - February 16, 2026 - Indian chip startup C2i Semiconductors has secured USD 15 million in new funding led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Yali Deeptech and TDK Ventures, as investors increasingly focus on the electrical constraints limiting large-scale AI data center expansion.
The company develops power-management semiconductors designed to improve how electricity moves from facility infrastructure to high-performance compute hardware. The latest round follows a USD 4 million seed investment raised in November 2024 and brings total capital raised to roughly USD 19 million.
Founded in June 2024, the startup targets a growing problem inside modern AI facilities: rising GPU density is pushing electrical systems close to their limits. Instead of building processors, the company designs chips that optimize voltage conversion and stabilize power delivery between grid equipment and server electronics.
C2i said the new funding will be used to expand internationally, including opening a U.S. office and building applications and systems engineering teams in Taiwan to work more closely with hyperscale customers and hardware manufacturing partners.
Industry investors increasingly view electrical efficiency as a central factor in AI economics. Operators are constrained not only by available compute but also by how much power can be delivered to racks. Technologies that reduce wasted electricity can allow higher performance without requiring equivalent increases in power capacity or cooling infrastructure.
The company’s architecture aims to reduce inefficiencies created across multiple conversion stages inside facilities, where power is stepped down repeatedly before reaching processors. By improving delivery at the silicon level, operators may be able to deploy denser compute clusters within existing electrical envelopes.
The funding highlights a broader shift in semiconductor investment toward infrastructure-enabling components surrounding AI systems rather than only accelerators themselves. As AI campuses scale toward hundreds of megawatts, the electrical layer, from substations to rack-level electronics, is becoming a strategic engineering challenge.
C2i plans to use the capital to advance development and begin validation with cloud and data center partners ahead of commercial deployment. The company is positioning its products as a way to help facilities support growing AI workloads without proportional expansion in power and cooling systems.
The deal reflects rising investor interest in technologies that improve efficiency across the data center stack. As compute demand accelerates globally, power-delivery innovation is emerging as a critical factor determining how quickly new AI capacity can be deployed.
