SiFive sells its chip connectivity unit OpenFive, including 75+ designs and a team of more than 300 people based mostly in India, to Alphawave for $210M in cash
Dylan Martin / The Register :
Context & Ripple Effects
SiFive has been building toward this from its early rounds — an $8.5M Series B in 2017 and a $65.4M Series D in 2019 funded its custom-chip design work on RISC-V. Selling OpenFive, with its 75-plus designs and more than 300 mostly India-based engineers, for $210M in cash strips out the services-heavy side of that business.
The timing is telling: one day after the sale, SiFive announced a $175M Series F at a $2.5B valuation, so the divestiture reads as portfolio cleanup before raising around the core RISC-V IP franchise. For Alphawave, the deal buys an established India-based design team just as India is pledging billions toward domestic chipmaking.
First-order effects
- Alphawave immediately gains 75-plus completed designs and a 300-person engineering organization in India, expanding its connectivity IP and design-services capacity overnight.
- SiFive converts a people-intensive unit into $210M of cash, leaving it focused on RISC-V processor IP heading into its Series F raise.
Second-order effects
- Alphawave's enlarged India footprint aligns it with New Delhi's chipmaking push — the $10B incentive program and the ₹1.28 trillion domestic-manufacturing pledge — giving it a talent base inside a market being subsidized to grow.
- SiFive's cleaner pure-play IP story underpins the investor confidence behind its subsequent funding trajectory, which by 2026 had reached a $400M Series G at a $3.65B valuation positioned as the final round before an IPO.
Third-order effects
- The deal sketches a structural split in the RISC-V ecosystem: IP-licensing specialists like SiFive shed design-services arms, while acquirers like Alphawave consolidate the services layer.
- As foreign chip firms acquire India-based teams rather than merely outsourcing to them, India's role shifts from contract destination to owned design hub — a pattern its tax-exemption and duty-removal policies are explicitly designed to accelerate.
The trend: Chip IP companies are divesting services units to become pure-play licensors, while acquirers absorb India-based design talent as India subsidizes its way into the global silicon supply chain.