Syntiant surpasses 1 million units shipped; raises $35M in series C led by M12 and applied ventures

Continues to Execute on Strategy, Fulfilling Growing Customer Demand for its Ultra-Low-Power, Deep Learning Voice Solution at the Edge

Syntiant, a deep learning tech company providing AI voice and sensor solutions at the edge, announced that the company has shipped more than 1 million units of its Syntiant® NDP100™ and Syntiant® NDP101™ microwatt-power Neural Decision Processors™ (NDPs) to customers worldwide.

The company also announced it has completed a $35 million Series C funding round. Microsoft’s venture fund M12 and Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, led the financing, and Atlantic Bridge Capital, Alpha Edison and Miramar Digital Ventures joined as new investors in the company.

The Syntiant® NDP100™ is 1.8 mm x 1.4 mm and consumes only 140uW when processing.

“It is a tremendous honor to know that some of the world’s tech investors are supporting our growth stage, as we deliver our deep learning voice solution to customers across the globe,” said Kurt Busch, CEO of Syntiant. “We are especially thrilled that production volumes of applications using our neural decision processors are increasing and expect orders to ramp even higher throughout the remainder of 2020, as our NDPs continue to set the standard for always on voice as the new interface.”

Syntiant also announced that Michael Stewart, Ph.D., investment director at Applied Ventures, has joined the company’s board of directors, and that David Lam, general partner of Atlantic Bridge Capital, will serve as a board observer.

Delivering Customized Voice Experiences at the Edge Now a Reality

Syntiant is enabling customized voice experiences at the edge, across multiple product and use cases, including wake words, command words, speaker identification and event detection, all free from cloud connectivity, ensuring privacy and security.

“Syntiant’s class power performance is making an ambient fabric of neural network-powered intelligence at the tiny edge a reality,” said Samir Kumar, managing director of M12. “We are now seeing Syntiant deliver on its execution strategy, setting new benchmarks that are unprecedented for a young AI chip company with the volume of products already shipped, and new customers coming on board.”

The company’s highly accurate NDPs have been designed into a wide range of battery-powered edge devices, such as smartphones, smart speakers, laptops and earbuds. Built from the ground up, Syntiant’s processors offer approximately 100x the power efficiency and 10x the throughput at half the die size, presenting a solution with the highest performance, lowest power and lowest cost compared to current MCU and DSP solutions.

According to Mike Demler, senior analyst at the independent technology analysis and strategic consultancy, The Linley, “There are numerous speech-recognition processors on the market, but the NDP101’s innovative architecture sets a new record for low power consumption.”

“Syntiant is one of the few edge computing companies to have successfully designed-in their product in high-volume applications,” said Anand Kamannavar, global head of Applied Ventures. “We are pleased to co-guide the company’s latest funding round and have Dr. Michael Stewart join such a talented board. Applied Ventures looks forward to helping Syntiant grow existing and prospective customers across multiple use categories that can benefit from low-power processing technology for voice and sensor applications. Investments in innovative companies like Syntiant are a key part of Applied Ventures’ Materials to Systems TM investment strategy.”

Syntiant provides a complete solution to run AI voice processing at the device level, combining silicon with data collection and deep learning training of its massively parallel neural network to significantly reduce time to revenue.

“Syntiant is truly the edge compute space with its AI chip solution,” said David Lam. “I am excited about joining the team and leveraging our firm’s successful track record of backing world-class companies in semiconductors and artificial intelligence to support the expansion of Syntiant’s disruptive technology as deep learning moves from the cloud to the edge.”