3 Indian Chip Startups Head to France With Homegrown Tech

India has always bought most of its computer chips from other countries, but three startups are showing that's starting to change.

VerveSemi, AGNIT Semiconductors, and Netrasemi have been chosen to represent India at Bharat Innovates 2026, a deep-tech showcase running June 14 to 16 in Nice, France. The selection matters because these companies are building the kind of technology India has relied on imports for decades.

The timing couldn't be better. The world has grown nervous about depending too heavily on Taiwan for advanced chips, and artificial intelligence needs computing power the older generation of chips wasn't built to handle. That opens real opportunity for newcomers who can design smarter solutions.

The Indian government noticed. Programs like the Design Linked Incentive and Chips to Startup, part of the India Semiconductor Mission, now bring both funding and credibility to founders who once had to start investor meetings by explaining what semiconductors even do.

The three companies couldn't be more different, and that's the good news. VerveSemi, founded in 2017 in Greater Noida, makes the chips that let physical sensors talk to digital systems. In February 2026, it raised $10 million in a round that was oversubscribed several times over, and its technology now shows up in electric vehicle controllers and space-grade sensors.

AGNIT Semiconductors spun out of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru and calls itself India's first vertically integrated gallium nitride company. You've probably used gallium nitride in your fast phone charger without realizing it, but the material also powers defense electronics and LED lighting.

Netrasemi, based in Thiruvananthapuram and founded in 2020, builds power-sipping chips for edge AI in surveillance cameras, drones, and robotics. Its flagship A2000 chip recently reached silicon bring-up at a Taiwanese foundry, and India's IT Minister called it the country's first edge AI system on chip. Commercial volumes are targeted for 2027.

The funding landscape has flipped since 2022. Jyothis Indirabhai, co-founder and CEO of Netrasemi, says this is the best time to build deep tech in India. Before 2022, pitching a chip company meant explaining the basics and dodging advice to build software instead. Now investors get it.

Chips are slow to build. A single design can take years of testing before a customer trusts it enough to use, and getting a design ready to manufacture often costs more than the manufacturing itself. But once a chip earns a place in a product, customers stick with it for nearly a decade because swapping parts is too much hassle.

The Ripple Effect

The trip to France isn't just about three companies. Each startup is chasing partnerships with European systems companies and research labs, quietly building bridges that could bring Indian-designed chips into global supply chains. VerveSemi is especially pleased that both its founders speak French.

Pratap Narayan Singh, co-founder of VerveSemi, says India should keep climbing the manufacturing ladder, moving from low-value goods toward becoming a maker of the central computing parts the world runs on. With chips already moving from lab to production, these three startups carry not just their own products to Nice, but a growing belief that the next generation of semiconductors can carry a made-in-India stamp.