Sunil Acharya, Director and Senior Advisor, Semiconductor Future Accelerator Lab Foundation (SFAL)
The Semiconductor Future Accelerator Lab Foundation (SFAL) plans to support around 75 additional semiconductor and electronics start-ups by 2030, expanding its scope beyond fabless chip design to electronic systems and semiconductor equipment design.
The combined valuation of companies supported by SFAL currently exceeds ₹1,000 crore, Sunil Acharya, director and senior advisor at SFAL, said. The industry-led, government-supported accelerator, which evolved from the Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab, is now targeting at least five companies with investments of $5 million or more over the next five years and aims to create an additional ₹1,000-1,200 crore in enterprise value.
SFAL was originally established with support from the Karnataka government and operationalised in 2019 with a project outlay of about ₹55 crore. Over its first phase, it supported more than 100 companies, including around 40 fabless semiconductor companies, according to Acharya.
SFAL’s next phase aims to move India’s semiconductor start-up ecosystem beyond what Acharya described as the “nascent” stage, with greater focus on commercialisation, indigenous IP and private capital. Following its initial five-year programme, the Semiconductor Future Accelerator Lab Foundation was established as a Section 8, not-for-profit entity in September 2025. The Karnataka government has approved ₹80 crore for the new programme, up from ₹55 crore previously, with roughly half to be contributed by the state and the remainder raised by SFAL.
“We have diversified our portfolio from only fabless to semiconductor equipment design and broadened the scope in terms of acceleration and support. If there is a new material or process that a start-up comes up with, we will support that as well. Second, we have created a vertical focused on semiconductor IP and technology development. We are looking at white spaces where there is no existing IP and areas that require some degree of sovereignty. If somebody wants to develop some IP, SFAL is willing to make an investment through resources and tools.
The third piece is next-generation semiconductor technology workforce development. We have trained 20-30 people on next-generation technologies, focusing on specific areas such as physical design and verification, and have achieved 100% placement ratings,” Acharya said.
He added that SFAL is not a numbers company, and will measure success through companies raising market investment, securing significant government grants, being acquired by larger corporations, developing breakthrough IP or securing purchase orders.
SFAL’s initial mandate was to address a fundamental barrier facing India’s semiconductor design start-ups: access to expensive electronic design automation (EDA) tools and the resources needed to take a chip from design to silicon.
“When we talk about 20 to 25% of the global chip designers are in India, a lot of them are in the MNCs or GCCs,” Acharya said. “So the intent of this team in 2017-18 was to create products and chipsets that are made in India and branded as an Indian chip.”
The accelerator subsequently broadened its portfolio because chip design could not be developed in isolation from the rest of the electronics value chain.
“We started looking at building the entire value chain,” Acharya said.
India’s semiconductor start-up ecosystem is currently at a nascent stage. The next stages are evolving, developing, mature and self-sustaining, with the latter characterised by more than 2,000 start-ups and an organically functioning venture capital and funding ecosystem, as seen in the US, China and Israel. A mature ecosystem, such as those in Europe and South Korea, typically, has 1,000-1,500 companies, alongside a strong investment ecosystem. Acharya said SFAL believes it has helped move India’s ecosystem from nascent to evolving over the past five years.
“Our next step is to move it from evolving to developing, which means around 200 start-ups — 50 well-funded, five successful. This will take another five years. We are confident as we see the emergence of manufacturing capabilities in the country,” Acharya highlighted.
Published on August 25, 2026
