Cognichip

Cognichip is an AI-first company revolutionizing semiconductor design with its Artificial Chip Intelligence (ACI)® platform. ACI® is the world's first physics-informed foundation AI model tailored for chip design, aiming to fundamentally reshape its economics. The platform promises a 75% reduction in design effort, 50% faster completion, and elimination of excessive chip size and power. Cognichip addresses a critical bottleneck in hardware development, where chip design takes 3-5 years compared to rapid AI software innovation. Their approach is AI-first, physics-informed, human-centered, and built for speed, democratizing chip design and allowing chips to keep pace with software advancements. The company was founded by experts from Amazon, Google, Apple, Aquantia, and Synopsys, and has raised $33 million in seed funding from investors including Mayfield, Lux Capital, FPV, and Candou Ventures. Cognichip is leading the AI disruption in the legacy chip design industry.

ACIAI-firstArtificial IntelligenceChip DesignDeep TechGenerative AISemiconductorcognichip.ai

Cognichip

ACIAI-firstArtificial IntelligenceChip DesignDeep TechGenerative AISemiconductorcognichip.ai

HQRedwood City, US

Team Size56

Open Jobs16

Total Funding$33M

Latest Fundraise10 months ago

TL;DR

Core product: ACI® — a physics-informed foundation AI model for semiconductor chip design

Founded: 2024

Headquarters: Redwood City, California

Seed funding: $33M (May 2025)

Founding team: Faraj Aalaei, Ehsan Kamalinejad, Mehdi Daneshpanah, Simon Sabato

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Company Overview

Problem Domain

Semiconductor chip design — long, expensive hardware development cycles and suboptimal size/power tradeoffs.

Founded

2024

Industry

DeepTech

Tech Stack

CDN JS

Cloudflare JS

Common Crawl

CommonCrawl Top 10m

Font Awesome

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Kong

nginx

Funding Track Record

Seed- 2025-05-15

$33,000,000

Round included participation from FPV Ventures and Candou Ventures; disclosed when company emerged from stealth.

Investor Signal

“Led by institutional deep‑tech investors (Lux Capital and Mayfield) with participation from FPV Ventures and Candou Ventures”

Join the Team

Senior Security Engineer

On-SiteToronto, Ontario, CA

On-Site • Toronto, Ontario, CA

At Cognichip, we are building the next-generation IDE to empower semiconductor design engineers with a 10x productivity boost through AI-native workflows and seamless integration with high-performance simulation engines.

We are seeking an experienced Security Engineer to help grow our security function. As an AI SaaS company serving the semiconductor industry, we are entrusted with sensitive design, model, and infrastructure data. You will be responsible for key security initiatives across our product, infrastructure, compliance, and operations—ensuring we meet and exceed industry standards like SOC 2 and maintain the trust of enterprise customers.

Core Responsibilities

Teeming tracks opportunities at over 24,000 AI startups, then works with you to find (and land) the one you'll love.

Product Designer

InternshipUtrecht, NL

Internship • Utrecht, NL

Data Scientist

Part-timeNiš, RS

Part-time • Niš, RS

Software Engineer

InternshipHamburg, DE

Internship • Hamburg, DE

Software Engineer

Full-timeCambridge, GB

Full-time • Cambridge, GB

Technical Writer

ContractJerusalem

Contract • Jerusalem

Product Designer

ContractBelgrade, RS

Contract • Belgrade, RS

Design, implement, and maintain security controls across AWS infrastructure and Kubernetes environments

Manage IAM policies, network security, and secrets management

Conduct security architecture reviews for new services and infrastructure changes

Security Operations and Incident Response

Develop and maintain incident response playbooks and runbooks

Lead security incident investigations, containment, and post-incident reviews

Build detection and monitoring capabilities across infrastructure and applications

Required Qualifications

4+ years of security engineering experience
Strong understanding of cloud security architecture (AWS preferred), Kubernetes, and IAM
Hands-on experience leading incident investigations, building detection capabilities, and developing IR playbooks
Experience with building security guardrails across CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and cloud environments to enable engineering teams with secure defaults, templates, and self-service security tooling
Excellent communication and ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with SOC 2, ISO 27001, or similar frameworks
Prior startup experience and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment
Proficiency in at least one of the following: Java, Python, Golang or TypeScript
Experience with corporate security (endpoint protection, identity management, SSO/MFA)

A greenfield opportunity to help build out the security function at a high-growth startup from day one.
Work at a company at the intersection of AI, semiconductor design, and developer productivity.
A cloud-native, microservices-based environment (AWS/Kubernetes) with strong engineering values and high autonomy.
Competitive compensation package including equity.
Work alongside world-class engineers, scientists, and product designers.
Collaborative and innovative startup culture where your impact is direct and visible.

Cognichip

Cognichip

TL;DR

Related Companies

Company Overview

Problem Domain

Founded

Industry

Tech Stack

Funding Track Record

Investor Signal

Founders

What we do

Join the Team

Senior Security Engineer

Teeming tracks opportunities at over 24,000 AI startups, then works with you to find (and land) the one you'll love.

Product Designer

Data Scientist

Software Engineer

Software Engineer

Technical Writer

Product Designer