Scimplify raises $25 million led by Hitachi Ventures to expand critical materials business

Bengaluru-based advanced materials and specialty chemicals company Scimplify has secured $25 million in a strategic funding round led by global investment arm Hitachi Ventures. The new cash injection takes the startup's total equity capital raised to $80 million, reinforcing investor confidence in India's growing capacity for high-tech industrial manufacturing.

Existing backers Accel India, Bertelsmann India Investments, Omnivore, and 3one4 Capital participated in the round. They were joined by new strategic investors Henkel, Teknor Apex, and a Japanese chemical giant. Both Henkel and Teknor Apex are existing corporate customers, with US-based Teknor Apex also acting as a contract manufacturing partner for Scimplify's North American expansion.

Scaling high-tech materials and AI capabilities

Scimplify plans to deploy the capital to build out its research and processing capacity, with an emphasis on rare earth and critical metals purification alongside high-purity chemicals used in semiconductors, batteries, energy infrastructure, and defence systems.

Founded in 2023 by Sachin Santhosh, Salil Srivastava, Dheeraj Dhingra, and Hersh Manek, the company addresses the structural gap between laboratory-scale chemical innovation and commercial manufacturing. Rather than developing new compounds from scratch, Scimplify partners with chemical innovators who have proven a material in the lab but lack a reliable, qualified path to full-scale production.

Central to its operations is SciNode, an AI-enabled software platform that predicts chemical synthesis routes, simulates factory production lines, and coordinates sourcing, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance across more than 500 mapped manufacturing facilities.

Anchoring global supply chains in India

Scimplify operates primary research and development laboratories in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The company confirmed that more than 40 per cent of its current portfolio is dedicated to advanced materials for semiconductors, battery technologies, and strategic critical minerals.

Scimplify co-founder Sachin Santhosh noted that global innovators require deep technical expertise and complex manufacturing capacity at scale, adding that the company is building these solutions with India at the centre.

Hitachi Ventures Managing Director for India, Radhika Ananth, pointed out that while India possesses vast industrial manufacturing capacity, much of it has historically remained underused due to a lack of integrated science and strict quality systems. She added that Scimplify's platform effectively closes this gap for global customers.

Scimplify's commercial client list includes global industrial names such as Dr Reddy's, Coromandel, BASF, Mankind Pharma, TDK, Marubeni, Coherent, and Holcim. The company's immediate US expansion will focus on establishing physical processing assets and qualifying American contract manufacturing partners for high-purity chemistries where Western domestic capacity remains constrained.