AI chip startup gets new backing from RTX's venture arm, other investors

EnCharge AI, a one-year-old chipmaking startup, has raised $22.6 million in its second institutional funding round to support the continued development of microelectronics for running artificial intelligence workloads.

The list of participants in this round announced Tuesday includes RTX Ventures, the aerospace-and-defense giant's investment arm for identifying and backing startup companies.

ACVC Partners and VentureTech Alliance are the strategic partners who were involved in the round alongside EnCharge AI's existing investors that include AlleyCorp, Scout VC, Silicon Catalyst Angels and S5V. VentureTech Alliance is also a major investor in TSMC, one of the world's largest handful of computer chip manufacturers.

EnCharge AI has now raised $45 million to-date and will use the newfound capital to further expand its team from the current number of 50 employees, along with scaling up chip and so-called "full stack" AI solution development efforts.

"The computational needs of AI push the limits of today's enterprises, resulting in expensive operations, environmental issues, and inadequate performance. This makes it difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to fully utilize AI's advantages," EnCharge AI's co-founder and chief executive Naveen Verma said in a release. "EnCharge AI is creating scalable hardware and software solutions that make AI more accessible and efficient for everyone — leveling the playing field."

EnCharge designs its in-memory computing technology to enable higher efficiency and density in systems for making AI functions more available at scale and in use cases where power, energy and space is constrained.

For more on RTX Ventures' technology and business scouting work, listen to this episode of our WT 360 podcast from September featuring that team's leader Dan Ateya.