Funding Roundup: VerifAIX & Firi Raise Seed Funding

Two startups closed seed rounds this week, backing AI-driven semiconductor verification and curated beauty commerce in India.

1. VerifAIX

VerifAIX, an AI-native semiconductor verification company, has raised $5 million in seed funding co-led by Endiya Partners and Bluehill VC, marking its first institutional round.

The company is building a verification trust layer to confirm that AI-generated chip designs are correct. Its platform, built around a “Formal Brain,” creates a mathematically grounded understanding of a design, reasoning across specifications, RTL and verification assets to identify inconsistencies and drive verification planning, formal analysis, simulation and debug.

VerifAIX was founded by Madhulima Tewari, Kenneth Roe and Avner Landver, with backgrounds spanning AI, semiconductor EDA and formal verification at Intel, SiFive, Synopsys, Apple, Cadence and IBM Research. The funding will support product development, customer deployments and engineering expansion across the US, India and Israel.

“AI is changing how semiconductor designs are created, but generating a design is not the same as proving that it is correct,” said Madhulima Tewari, CEO, VerifAIX.

2. Firi

Firi has raised $3 million in a seed round led by 360 ONE Asset, with participation from Better Capital, Kunal Shah and other founders and operators.

Firi runs a curated beauty store, reviewing products before deciding what to sell rather than listing the entire market catalogue. Using AI agents to analyze Reddit threads, YouTube reviews and ingredient lists, the company has shortlisted 3,000 products from more than 50 million reviews, a qualification rate of about 1%. It currently sells skincare, haircare and bodycare, and plans to expand into makeup and fragrance with the new funding.

Founded by Karishma Rathaur and Vivek Madani, former members of Uber’s early India team, Firi reports an average order value roughly 2x that of larger online beauty retailers such as Nykaa and Tira.

“I’ve had eczema all my life, and for years I figured out what to buy by spending hours on Reddit and going through ingredient lists. We’re building for someone who instead relies on a friend or family member to make purchases on their behalf,” said Karishma Rathaur, co-founder, Firi.