Mosaic SoC raises USD $3.8m to power smart devices

Mosaic SoC has raised USD $3.8 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Founderful, with participation from Kick Foundation.

The Zurich-based semiconductor startup is developing perception chips for wearables and mobile devices, including AR glasses and smartphone cameras. The chips are designed to help devices process visual and positional sensor data in real time while using little power.

The funding comes as consumer electronics makers add more cameras and sensors to devices, increasing demand for on-device processing without the need for larger batteries, more heat management, or bulkier designs. Mosaic SoC is targeting Original Design Manufacturers that want to add spatial awareness to products without relying on more energy-hungry application processors and graphics processors.

Its chips provide a base layer of spatial intelligence alongside an application layer that manufacturers can integrate into their products. The approach is intended to reduce the engineering work needed to add perception features to devices such as smart glasses and smartphones.

The technology is aimed at tasks such as building a local map of a device's surroundings, identifying objects, and tracking movement. In smartphones, the chip can serve as a co-processor for a front camera, enabling always-on tracking and classification while using less power than conventional approaches.

Mosaic SoC was founded by Moritz Scherer and Alfio Di Mauro, both PhDs from ETH Zurich with experience in system-on-chip architecture. They said they saw a gap between demand for edge intelligence and what existing hardware could deliver in devices with tight energy limits.

Alfio Di Mauro, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, outlined the company's pitch in a statement on the fundraise.

"Spatial intelligence shouldn't require an application-class processor and a GPU," said Alfio Di Mauro, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Mosaic SoC.

"We built Mosaic SoC to deliver real-time perception at a fraction of the energy, so battery-powered devices can understand their environment without compromising form factor," he said.

Early revenue

Beyond the funding, Mosaic SoC said it generated revenue in its first year through non-recurring engineering contracts with ODM partners. It expects that mix to shift over time from engineering work toward chip sales as products reach the market.

That suggests the company is trying to build customer relationships early in its development, at a stage when many semiconductor startups are still focused mainly on design and prototyping. The model combines chip sales with software support, with Mosaic SoC maintaining the application layer that sits on top of its silicon.

One of its key technical differentiators, according to the company, is its architecture. While other approaches rely on single-core or dual-core Arm-based designs, Mosaic SoC said it uses a proprietary multi-core architecture with eight or more cores for always-on perception in energy-constrained devices.

The business is also developing AI deployment toolchains and compilers for firmware developers using its architecture. That indicates it wants to do more than supply chips and instead build a broader software environment around its silicon for device makers.

Investor view

Founderful framed the investment as a bet on a growing market for devices that can interpret their surroundings rather than simply capture images. That shift could be especially important for product categories such as smart glasses, where battery life, heat, and size remain significant constraints.

"The next billion smart devices will see and understand the world around them. Mosaic SoC's product is the chip that makes that possible at scale. Moritz and Alfio have the architecture, the platform vision, and the team to make it happen. We are proud to back them with Founderful on their journey to define the spatial computing era," said Antonia Albert, Investor, Founderful.

Mosaic SoC has operations in the US, Europe, and Asia. It aims for its chips to become a standard layer for spatial intelligence in wearables and mobile devices, where energy use and device design have limited broader adoption.