Bluehill.VC, a frontier-tech-focused VC fund, today announced that it has led a Rs 10.2 crore seed round in Makr Microsystems, a semiconductor metrology company, with participation from Artha Venture FundMakr is developing technology that allows chipmakers to see and measure what is happening beneath the surface of a chip at the nanoscale.
The seed round will support the company’s continued technology development, customer validation and progression toward commercial deployment.
For Bluehill, Makr represents the kind of company they want to identify and back with conviction early. Manu Iyer, General Partner, Bluehill.VC, says, “We are excited about companies that sit deeper in critical technology value chainsMakr is solving a difficult problem in semiconductor manufacturing at a time when the industry is moving toward increasingly complex architecturesWe believe this is a global opportunity, and that world-class semiconductor equipment and technology can be built from India.”
India is beginning to build depth across this stackWith India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, the country’s semiconductor ambitions are expanding beyond fabs and chip design to include semiconductor equipment, materials, R&D and broader supply-chain capabilities.
While much of the semiconductor investment conversation has centred around fabless chip companies, the semiconductor value chain extends far beyond the chip itselfThe equipment, materials and measurement technologies that enable manufacturing are equally critical and often far harder to build.
For Bluehill, this is an important part of the opportunityThe Fund is looking beyond the most visible parts of the semiconductor value chain to back frontier technologies that can become critical infrastructure for the industry. Makr is one such bet, led by Ashwin Lal, who brings experience across semiconductor technology and scientific instrumentationAshwin holds an M.Scin Physics from IIT Kanpur and a Ph.Din Microtechnology from EPFL, and has previously founded Shilps Sciences and worked as an engineer at Applied Materials.
The broader team brings expertise across semiconductor metrology, atomic force microscopy, scanning probe systems, MEMS, embedded systems and scientific instrumentation.
Ashwin Lal, Founder, Makr Microsystems, says, “Semiconductor manufacturing is creating structures that are increasingly difficult to see and measureAs architectures move into the third dimension, understanding what is happening beneath the surface becomes critical to improving yieldOur goal is to make the subsurface measurable, non-destructively and at the resolution the next generation of chipmaking demands.”
Making the invisible measurable
As semiconductor devices become smaller and more complex, more of the structures that matter are moving below the surfaceAdvanced packaging, chiplets and 3D architectures increasingly rely on interfaces and connections that can be buried beneath multiple layers of material.
Being able to see and measure these structures is critical for understanding how a device has been manufactured, identifying defects and improving yieldToday’s metrology tools are highly sophisticated, but different techniques involve trade-offs around resolution, depth, speed and whether the sample needs to be damaged or prepared for inspection. Makr is developing a new approach to this problem.
Makr’s core technology is Acoustic Atomic Force Microscopy (AAFM), which combines atomic force microscopy with acoustic sensing to access information beneath the surface of semiconductor structures.
In simple terms, the technology uses acoustic signals to gather information that conventional surface-based techniques can struggle to accessMakr is developing this into a platform for high-resolution, non-destructive subsurface measurement.
The initial applications include advanced packaging, hybrid bonding, buried interfaces, chiplet interconnects and defect detection: areas where understanding what is happening beneath the surface is becoming increasingly important.
Betting on the deeper layers
Bluehill has already made two bets on the fabless side of semiconductorsBut building the semiconductor ecosystem requires much more than fabless companiesIt requires the machines, materials, measurement systems and specialised technologies that allow advanced manufacturing to happen.
These companies are often less visible to mainstream venture capitalThey also tend to require deeper technical diligence, longer development cycles and a greater understanding of the underlying scienceAnd that is precisely where they see an opportunity to take differentiated bets.
From India to the world
The opportunity for Makr extends well beyond IndiaThe same shift toward more complex semiconductor architectures is taking place across the world’s leading semiconductor ecosystems, creating demand for better ways to inspect and characterise increasingly sophisticated devices.
For Bluehill, this investment is a bet on the deeper layers of the semiconductor stack and on the opportunity to build globally relevant deeptech from IndiaThe fund recently announced the final close of its maiden fund at Rs 400 crore.
