Syntiant, a start-up based in Irvine, California, raised $25 million in Series B funding for its deep neural network processors for battery-powered devices.
Syntiant said its forthcoming neural decision processors (NDPs) will use an analog neural network that can offer orders of magnitude lower power by extreme memory efficiency along with massively parallel computation with modest precision. The processsors are targetted at applications as small as hearing aids and IoT, to as large as smart speakers and mobile phones.
The funding was led by M12, Microsoft Corp.’s venture fund, and included the Amazon Alexa Fund, Applied Ventures, Intel Capital, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and Robert Bosch Venture Capital.
“We are both humbled and excited to be supported by several of the world’s greatest technology companies,” said Kurt Busch, CEO of Syntiant. “With participation from existing and new investors, and deeper guidance from our expanded board with the additions of Samir Kumar and Bret Johnsen, we will be able to commercialize Syntiant’s neural network technology for battery-powered devices to truly enable pervasive artificial intelligence.”
- Syntiant is headed by Kurt Busch, who previously led Lantronix. Before that, he was a senior vice president and general manager of high performance analog business unit at Mindspeed Technologies, acquired by MACOM.
