Malaysia-based fabless custom chip design company GreatAsic has raised $6.9 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, with participation from Ehsan Kapital and Gobi Partners.

In a statement on Tuesday, Vertex Ventures said the investment is in line with Malaysia developing front-end chip design capabilities beyond its traditional role in semiconductor assembly and testing. The proceeds will finance engineering hires, expanded operations, and acceleration of the company’s planned silicon projects, the fund added.

GreatAsic designs custom ASICs and AI System-on-Chip platforms for data center, Edge AI, and automotive markets. The company is among the first Malaysian design firms to access Arm Holdings’ semiconductor IP, having secured both Arm Flexible Access and Arm Neoverse Compute Subsystems tokens, with the Arm Flexible Access agreement already formalized with the Malaysian Investment Development Authority.

Ong Chin Hu, founder and CEO of GreatAsic, said Malaysia has world-class engineering talent and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design, not just build, the chips that power the AI era.

Chan Yip Pang, Executive Director of Investment at Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, said GreatAsic’s leadership team, with backgrounds at StarFive, Intel, Marvell, and Broadcom, is among the best positioned in Malaysia to design and deliver an AI SoC.

Yong Kai Ping, CEO of Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation, said the fundraise reflects the caliber of innovation the Malaysia Semiconductor IC Design Park was built to cultivate.

Malaysia strengthens chip ecosystem through talent, smart manufacturing