Physical AI startup SiMa.ai has raised $150 million in a Series C funding round, valuing the company at $1.45 billion and taking its total capital raised to $500 million.

The financing gives the San Jose-headquartered company fresh capital to expand both sides of its physical AI platform. SiMa.ai plans to scale Palette Neat, its agentic software environment for physical AI, while accelerating development of its next generation of hardware.

The round was co-led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify. Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital, +ND Capital, Point72 and StepStone Group also participated. Bessemer Venture Partners, Baron Capital, J.P. Morgan and the State of Michigan joined as new investors.

SiMa AI: From raising capital to pushing the edge

The more consequential part of the announcement is what SiMa.ai intends to build with the money.

Its third-generation platform is being designed to deliver 1,000 dense tera operations per second, or TOPS, on purpose-built physical AI silicon. The company expects its next-generation hardware offerings in the first half of 2028, with plans spanning machine learning intellectual property, chiplets and systems-on-chip.

SiMa.ai is targeting applications that need substantial AI processing close to where data is produced. These include medium- to high-end drones, humanoid robots, automotive advanced driver-assistance systems and AI-powered vehicle cockpits.

The company said its second-generation platform is already in production, while the new funding will help speed up work on Gen 3. Founder and CEO Krishna Rangasayee said the next platform is intended to take performance to 1,000 tera operations, marking a significant step up from the company’s second-generation system.  

Why SiMa.ai is focusing on physical AI

Physical AI broadly describes artificial intelligence systems that can perceive and interact with the physical world. For companies building robots, vehicles and drones, that shifts part of the computing challenge away from centralised infrastructure and toward devices operating in real-world environments.

SiMa.ai’s approach combines purpose-built silicon with software, positioning its platform as an alternative for physical-edge AI workloads that might otherwise rely on GPUs. The company is focused on reducing the complexity of deploying AI models directly on edge devices.

That positioning is central to its growth strategy. Rangasayee said opportunities across humanoids, automotive and drones provide access to what he described as a $50 trillion market that remains largely untouched by modern innovation. That figure is the company’s stated market opportunity, rather than an independently established market valuation.

The broader category is also expected to see significant device growth. Counterpoint Research projects cumulative shipments of physical AI devices, including vehicles, robots and drones, to reach 145 million between 2025 and 2035.

Software remains part of the bet

Although the company’s hardware roadmap carries much of the technical ambition, the Series C is not solely a chip-development round.

Part of the proceeds will also support Palette Neat, SiMa.ai’s agentic software environment for physical AI. That combination of software and specialised hardware sits at the centre of the company’s effort to make AI deployment on physical devices easier.

Amplify Partners general partner Mike Dauber said SiMa.ai has worked to reduce the complexity involved in deploying AI models at the physical edge and shorten the time required to bring autonomous systems to market. He described the company as having the ingredients to become a category-defining technology business.

For SiMa.ai, the new round therefore does more than extend its balance sheet. It funds a specific transition from a second-generation platform already in production to a third-generation architecture aimed at significantly higher computing performance, while also expanding the software layer used to deploy AI in machines operating beyond the data centre.

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