Bengaluru – CraftifAI, a software startup building AI tools for embedded engineers
announced it has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Ankur Capital, with participation from IvyCap
Ventures, Capital-A, Antler and others. The fresh capital will be used to scale CraftifAI’s engineering and
go-to-market teams as the company expands its footprint across global embedded, edge, and IoT markets.
CraftifAI is building CraftifAI Orbit, an Agentic AI platform designed to automate embedded software
development for Edge, IoT, and AI-powered devices. Orbit simplifies how engineers build intelligent
systems—spanning automated, hardware-optimized code generation and AI/ML
deployment—dramatically reducing development time and cost.
The company’s mission is to democratize embedded software development, eliminate hardware vendor
lock-in, and help device makers bring intelligent products to market faster across robotics, drones,
industrial IoT, automotive, consumer electronics, and more.
The funding comes at a critical moment for the embedded systems industry. The number of connected
smart devices is projected to grow from 16 billion in 2023 to over 41 billion by 2030, while device
complexity continues to skyrocket. Modern vehicles now ship with 3x more sensors and chips than a
decade ago, and AI is rapidly moving from the cloud to the edge across robots, factories, and consumer
devices.
Yet, the talent pool hasn’t kept pace. With only ~2.5 million embedded software engineers globally, the
industry faces a severe bottleneck—slowing innovation and inflating development costs. CraftifAI is
tackling this gap head-on.
Early customers report that tasks which previously took days now take minutes using CraftifAI Orbit.
The platform consolidates fragmented toolchains into a single AI-driven workflow, automating the
embedded software lifecycle—from firmware and driver generation to AI model deployment and
monitoring across high-performance edge AI, resource-constrained IoT, and FPGA platforms.
By augmenting existing engineering teams rather than replacing them, Orbit significantly boosts
developer productivity and accelerates time-to-market.
CraftifAI was founded in 2025 by Pratik Sharda (former product lead for PhonePe’s Payment Devices)
and Yashwant Dagar (former system design engineer at Xilinx-AMD and Sima.ai) who experienced
inefficiencies in the embedded software industry and saw how several bottlenecks delay product launches.
“The embedded software industry has struggled with the same inefficiencies for decades- manual driver
development, hardware vendor lock-in, and lengthy development cycles,” said Pratik Sharda,
Co-Founder and CEO of CraftifAI. “I experienced these pain points firsthand at PhonePe while leading
SmartSpeaker development, and my Co-founder Yashwant faced similar challenges building edge AI
applications for customers at AMD and SIMA.ai. We saw how these bottlenecks delay product launches
and significantly increase costs. With CraftifAI Orbit, we’re bringing the same AI-powered productivity
revolution that developers love in tools like Cursor to the embedded systems world. Our vision is to make
embedded development as accessible and efficient as modern software development, enabling any
engineer to build Edge applications & firmwares without being locked into specific hardware vendors.”
Shiva Shanker, Partner at Ankur Capital, added, “The embedded software market is experiencing a
fundamental transformation. Smart devices of all types are becoming both more common and more
complex. We are investing in CraftifAI because we believe this sector is at a critical inflection point. As
Ankur Capital’s thesis, we look for opportunities where technological shifts create new opportunities at
scale. The convergence of AI, edge hardware proliferation, and the talent shortage represents exactly that
kind of inflection point. CraftifAI’s AI-native approach addresses this critical gap by making existing
developers significantly more productive.
“We’re excited to back CraftifAI as part of India’s emerging AI infrastructure story. Generative AI-led
development tools will redefine semiconductor software workflows. By accelerating firmware porting and
code creation, the platform enables faster time-to-market and positions India to build globally relevant
AI-native chip tooling”, mentioned Ankit Kedia, Founder and Lead Investor at Capital-A.
CraftifAI has already secured pilots with several Indian OEMs across (Robotics, Drones, IoT & AI
Camera domains) and a semiconductor company listed in the US.
