SAN JOSE — Rapid Silicon, a provider of AI-enabled application-specific Field Programmable Gateway Arrays (FPGAs) based on open-source technology, has announced $15 million in seed funding led by ChengWei Capital and Cambium Capital. Rapid Silicon is headed by industry veteran Dr. Naveed Sherwani and has offices in San Jose and Shanghai, and plans to expand with additional offices in Europe and Asia.
“Today’s customer demand for simple-to-use and efficient FPGAs from independent suppliers is driven by increasing market consolidation and the rise of domain-specific architectures,” said Dr. Naveed Sherwani, Chairman, President, and CEO of Rapid Silicon. “We see an opportunity to become a leading independent supplier of FPGAs. We are building our solution on top of open source FPGA technology using proprietary AI methodologies to meet the growing demand for diverse target applications.”
As a founding member of the Open Source FPGA Foundation, Rapid Silicon has adopted the foundation’s open source tools and methodologies to allow for innovation on a global scale. Rapid Silicon’s new generation of FPGAs targets a wide range of applications, allowing customers to introduce differentiated products in record time.
“We are excited to work with Dr. Sherwani and his team to help bring this technology to the marketplace. Rapid Silicon’s business model utilizes open source and proprietary technology to enable customers to bring products to market more efficiently,” said Landon Downs, Managing Partner at Cambium Capital. “The company is poised to become a global leader in the FPGA industry.”
