SixSense, a pioneer in AI for semiconductor manufacturing, announced a new round of funding led by Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia India & SEA), with participation from Alpha Intelligence Capital, Febe, and others.
Founded by engineers Akanksha Jagwani and Avni Agarwal, SixSense is tackling one of the semiconductor industry’s biggest challenges: turning raw production data from defect images to equipment signals into real-time intelligence that helps factories prevent quality issues, improve throughput, and produce more good chips from the same line.
With this new funding, SixSense will:
-Expand into chipmaking hubs across Malaysia, Taiwan, and the U.S.
-Partner with more AI-first inspection equipment makers to deliver deeper on-the-ground AI integration
-Invest in next-gen R&D — moving from isolated inspection tools to line-level intelligence, where multiple machines talk to each other through AI to improve factory-wide decisions in real time
As demand surges from AI, 5G, IoT, and electric vehicles, chipmakers are racing to build smaller, more complex chips — with far less room for error. “Making a single chip is one of the most demanding feats in modern manufacturing — it happens in cleanrooms thousands of times cleaner than hospital operating rooms and relies on precise coordination across hundreds of machines and thousands of ultra-sensitive steps,” said Akanksha Jagwani, Co-founder and CEO of SixSense. “Imagine trying to build a skyscraper out of microscopic Lego blocks, where a tiny shift in one brick — invisible to the eye — can collapse the whole structure. That’s what chip factories face every day.” Spotting early signs of failure before they spiral into costly defects or delays is a big challenge and that’s where AI becomes essential.
SixSense AI gives engineers the early warnings they need to fix problems. Their platform analyzes massive volumes of production data to detect, classify, and predict failure patterns — helping factories shift from reactive inspection to proactive control.
With SixSense, manufacturers can:
-Catch rare, small, and critical defects that humans often miss
-Avoid over-rejecting good chips — improving usable output (i.e., yield)
-Predict process drifts before they cause bigger failures
“Unlike traditional AI tools, SixSense is hardware-agnostic, explainable, and built for engineers — not data scientists,” said Avni Agarwal, Co-founder and CTO. “Process engineers can fine-tune models using their own fab data, deploy them in under two days, and trust the results — all without writing a single line of code. That’s what makes the platform both powerful and practical.”
SixSense already powers inspection lines at leading semiconductor manufacturers such as GlobalFoundries and JCET. Their customers have processed 100 million chips through the SixSense system and typically seen benefits such as :
-30% faster production cycles
-1%–2% higher yield by recovering chips that would’ve been wrongly rejected
-Up to 20% fewer errors and >90% less manual effort
The platform is well integrated with major inspection equipment vendors that collectively cover over 60% of the market.
“We started with one step in the process — defect review — and quickly realized customers needed more,” said Akanksha. “Now we’re building the intelligence layer for the entire production line. It’s the foundation every modern fab will need.”
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