SixSense, a deep tech startup with origins in Singapore, today announced that it has completed a successful Series A funding of $8.5 million. This accomplishment catapults its total funding to nearly $12 million. The engineers Akanksha Jagwani and Avni Agarwal started the company in 2018. Their mission is to disrupt semiconductor manufacturing by turning raw production data into real-time intelligence.
The startup addresses a critical challenge in the semiconductor industry: predicting and detecting potential chip defects on production lines. By leveraging its advanced AI platform, SixSense provides semiconductor manufacturers with early warnings of issues, enabling them to address potential problems before they escalate.
Autonomously run, SixSense’s platform can be implemented across the manufacturing lifecycle with capabilities like defect detection, root cause analysis, and predictive failure analysis. This holistic approach has made it incredibly easy for customers to prosper. Audits conducted post-implementation reveal they have made gains as high as a 30% increase in production cycle speed and a 1-2% improvement in yield. On top of that, clients have seen up to 90% reduction in manual inspection effort, illustrating the power and efficiency of the SixSense solution.
Chief Technology Officer Akanksha Jagwani, who has delivered automation solutions to manufacturers such as Hyundai Motors and GE. She has extensive experience leading product development at other startups including Embibe. This experience provides her with extremely useful perspective on what the industry needs.
The firm’s customer base is incredibly diverse. This applies to both foreign and domestic, including large-scale chipmakers, foundries, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers (OSATs), and integrated device manufacturers (IDMs). Avni Agarwal, the Chief Executive Officer, noted the strategic advantage of their location:
“We’re seeing fabs and OSATs expand aggressively in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, India, and the U.S. — and that’s a tailwind for us. Why? Because we’re already based in the region, and many of these new facilities are starting fresh — without legacy systems weighing them down. That makes them far more open to AI-native approaches like ours from day one.”
This is especially important as semiconductor production grows in complexity and the engineers who develop them have to make more informed decisions. According to Agarwal:
“The burden of using it for decision-making still falls on engineers: [they must] spot patterns, investigate anomalies, and trace root causes. That’s time-consuming, subjective, and doesn’t scale well with increasing process complexity.”
Solving this market challenge is what SixSense’s platform was built to do. Process engineers can use their own fab data to further tune models to production specifications. They can have these models deployed in under two days and all without writing a line of code! Agarwal emphasized the practicality of their solution:
“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.”
Today, the company works with fab shops in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Israel. It is still on a very active and apparently successful mission to expand its reach into the U.S. market. The demand for AI-embedded solutions is soaring in the semiconductor industry. SixSense is prepared to lead the charge and improve manufacturing efficiency.
