C2i Semiconductors, an Indian startup, has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Yali Deeptech and TDK Ventures, bringing the total funding to $19 million.
C2i is building plug-and-play, system-level power solutions to cut energy losses and improve the economics of large-scale AI infrastructure. The company's co-founder and CTO, Preetam Tadeparthy, noted that power conversion currently wastes about 15% to 20% of energy.
The investment comes as data-center energy demand accelerates worldwide, with electricity consumption projected to nearly triple by 2035, according to a BloombergNEF report.
The Funding Round
Rajan Anandan, managing director of Peak XV Partners, said the attraction lies in how power costs shape the economics of AI infrastructure at scale. Anandan noted that even incremental efficiency gains can be highly valuable, with the potential to reduce energy costs by 10 to 30%.
C2i expects its first two silicon designs to return from fabrication between April and June, after which the startup plans to validate performance with data-center operators and hyperscalers.
Product Details
C2i is redesigning power delivery as a single, plug-and-play “grid-to-GPU” system spanning the data-center bus to the processor itself. By treating power conversion, control, and packaging as an integrated platform, C2i estimates it can cut end-to-end losses by around 10%.
Market Context
The bet also reflects how India’s semiconductor design ecosystem has matured in recent years, with a growing share of global chip designers based in the country. Anandan compared the current state of semiconductors in India to the e-commerce industry in 2008, saying it's “just getting started”.
