Physical AI Company SiMa.ai Becomes a Unicorn, Raises $150 Million Series C at a $1.45 Billion Valuation
San Jose-based SiMa.ai, a Physical AI company with deep Indian roots through its major research and development centre in Bengaluru, has raised $150 million in an oversubscribed Series C round, taking its total capital raised to $500 million and pushing its valuation to $1.45 billion, officially making it a unicorn.
Here's who backed the round. Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify co-led the raise, with participation from existing investors Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Maverick Capital, +ND Capital, Point72 and StepStone Group, while AllianceBernstein, Baron Capital, J.P. Morgan and the State of Michigan joined as new investors, a genuinely broad mix of venture, hedge fund and institutional capital.
Here's what SiMa.ai actually builds. Founded in 2018 by Krishna Rangasayee, the company develops purpose-built silicon and software for Physical AI, systems where artificial intelligence needs to run directly on physical devices like robots, cars and drones, rather than in the cloud. Its software platform, Palette Neat, is positioned as the industry's first agentic software environment for Physical AI, and the fresh capital will fund next-generation hardware designed to deliver 1,000 dense TOPS of compute through purpose-built silicon. The company's pitch is straightforward, Physical AI applications have traditionally relied on NVIDIA GPUs, which can be expensive and power-hungry, and SiMa.ai is positioning itself as a more efficient, purpose-built alternative.
The traction numbers back up the valuation jump. SiMa.ai now serves more than 150 customers across automotive, drones and robotics, and quadrupled its year-over-year revenue growth between 2024 and 2025, with momentum continuing into 2026. Founder and CEO Krishna Rangasayee framed the opportunity boldly, calling Physical AI in humanoids, automotive and drones the gateway to a $50 trillion market that has remained largely untouched by modern innovation.
The bigger picture matters here too. According to Counterpoint Research, cumulative shipments of Physical AI devices, spanning robotics, automotive and drones, are projected to reach 145 million units by 2035, and SiMa.ai is betting its silicon-plus-software approach puts it at the center of that shift, right as AI moves from software applications into real, physical machines operating in the world.
From a 2018 Dell-backed Series A to a $1.45 billion unicorn in 2026, SiMa.ai's rise is a strong signal that the next big AI infrastructure race isn't just about data centres, it's about chips built for the physical world.
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— Sandeep Raiza