Mosaic SoC, a Zurich-based semiconductor startup, has raised $3.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Founderful, with participation from Kick Foundation.
The company is building next-generation perception chips that enable devices to see, track, and interpret their surroundings in real time while consuming very little power. Its technology is aimed at wearables and mobile products such as AR glasses and smartphone cameras, where battery life, heat and size remain constant limitations.
Smart devices are packed with cameras and sensors, but many still struggle to truly understand the world around them. The next generation of devices is expected to do more than simply capture photos or video. They will need to understand space, recognise objects, map surroundings and respond instantly to what users are doing.
Mosaic SoC was founded by Moritz Scherer and Alfio Di Mauro, both PhD graduates from ETH Zurich, where they identified a widening gap between demand for on-device intelligence and the limits of existing hardware.
Instead of relying on power-hungry general processors, it has designed a dedicated perception chip that acts as a baseline layer of spatial intelligence. Hardware manufacturers can integrate the chip and then build additional applications on top of it.
The company says its integrated circuits process visual and positional sensor data to help devices understand where they are and what surrounds them. Internally, it describes the process as turning space into signals. This capability could unlock new experiences in smart glasses. A device could create a live map of a room, identify objects, and even remember where a user last placed an item. It could also generate floor plans in real time.
For smartphones, the chip can work as a co-processor connected to the front-facing camera. It can continuously track scenes or classify objects while using only a fraction of the power of traditional processors. This means a phone could begin recording only when a certain person, gesture, or event appears, rather than constantly running the camera at full load.
Its commercial model is to sell chips. But the company believes it can reduce engineering burdens for manufacturers by shipping a full software application layer alongside the silicon, allowing partners to integrate faster rather than building perception systems from scratch.
In its first year, the business has already generated revenue through non-recurring engineering contracts with manufacturing partners. As commercial products launch, it expects income to increasingly come from chip sales at scale.
Mosaic SoC says its main technical edge lies in architecture. While many rival solutions, like Axelera AI, Hailo and Syntiant, use one or two ARM-based cores, its proprietary design uses eight or more cores to maximise performance per watt, making always-on perception practical in compact devices.
Beyond hardware, the company is also developing deployment tools and compilers to help firmware developers optimise applications for its chips. Its long-term ambition is clear: become the standard intelligence layer for wearables and mobile devices, enabling always-aware products without sacrificing battery life, comfort or design.
The fresh capital will be used to accelerate chip development, expand engineering teams, strengthen software tools and prepare its first products for commercial launch with hardware partners.