SixSense, a deep tech startup for semiconductor manufacturing, has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia India & SEA), with participation from Alpha Intelligence Capital, Febe, and others.
The round brings its total funding to around $12 million to date.
The fresh funds raised will be used to expand into chipmaking hubs across Malaysia, Taiwan, and the U.S. and partner with more AI-first inspection equipment makers to deliver deeper on-the-ground AI integration. SixSense also plans to invest in 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.
Founded in 2018 by Akanksha Jagwani (CTO) and Avni Agarwal (CEO), SixSense is a deep-tech startup that has developed an AI-powered platform to help semiconductor manufacturers predict and detect potential chip defects on production lines in real-time.
Akanksha Jagwani, Co-founder and CEO of SixSense, said, “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. 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.”
She added, “We started with one step in the process — defect review — and quickly realized customers needed more. Now we’re building the intelligence layer for the entire production line. It’s the foundation every modern fab will need.”
Avni Agarwal, Co-founder and CTO, said, “Unlike traditional AI tools, SixSense is hardware-agnostic, explainable, and built for engineers — not data scientists. 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.”
