The Technology Development Board (TDB) under the Department of Science and Technology has signed an agreement with Bengaluru-based BigEndian Semiconductors to provide ₹130 crore in financial support under the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund.
Project VeerAI
The funding supports Project VeerAI, an indigenous semiconductor initiative with a total project cost of ₹260 crore. The project aims to develop a camera-focused Artificial Intelligence Vision System-on-Chip (SoC) and take it from Technology Readiness Level TRL-5 to TRL-9 — the leap from validation to commercial deployment. The TDB assistance will be extended through Optional Convertible Debt (OCD).
Sovereign silicon
Project VeerAI is building a secure AI chip platform initially for surveillance applications, particularly CCTV systems, with planned expansion into defence, automotive, industrial automation and healthcare. The goal: reduce India's dependence on foreign semiconductor technologies by creating a sovereign platform with integrated AI processing, security, privacy and connectivity features.
The move dovetails with a busy week for Indian silicon — Graphcore committed £1 billion to an India AI engineering campus, and Agrani is in talks to raise ₹800–850 crore from Samsung, 360 One and Peak XV.
Why it matters for founders
The RDI Fund is now writing ₹130 crore cheques to deeptech startups — non-dilutive, mission-aligned capital that VCs cannot match on patience. If you are building sovereign tech, map every government instrument before you pitch a single VC. Find these funders and apply in one click at noranow.in/investors — and build your application with the Apply Kit.