India has developed its own satellite navigation system, NavIC, but much of the hardware required to receive its signals is still imported. MumbaiSemi, an IIT Bombay (IIT-B) spinout, aims to address this gap with an indigenous radio-frequency (RF) chip that can process signals from NavIC and other satellite navigation systems.
Founded in late 2024, the Mumbai-based deeptech startup is commercialising DhruvaPro, a programmable RF chip designed for the front end of navigation receivers. Unlike conventional chips that typically operate on specific frequency bands, DhruvaPro can be programmed to work across different bands, offering greater flexibility.
“We had almost six years of research at IIT-B, initially because there was a government project to develop an RF chip for NavIC. We went through two silicon iterations, both of which were successful, and started getting good feedback from the industry. That’s when we decided to take this technology forward as a company,” says Vijay Kanchetla, Co-founder of MumbaiSemi.
The startup has an 11-member team, including Co-founder Rajesh Zele, who is also a professor at IIT Bombay.
From NavIC research to commercial pilots
The founder says DhruvaPro is one of India’s first reconfigurable RF navigation receiver chip. An antenna picks up weak, high-frequency satellite signals, while the RF chip filters out unwanted signals, amplifies, down-converts, and digitizes the navigation signals before this binary data reaches the receiver's processor for decoding the receiver's position, velocity, and time.
Kanchetla says the original motivation was to design an RF chip capable of receiving India’s NavIC signals. However, the team decided to make the technology compatible with all global navigation systems.
“We designed a chip such that it is not just for the Indian market, but to be able to supply to the entire world,” he says. “So what we did is make this chip work for NavIC, GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou—all navigation satellite systems of the world.”
According to the company, DhruvaPro can also be reprogrammed to operate on new frequency bands, allowing navigation systems to adapt without replacing the RF chip.
“Most existing chips are locked to one particular navigation frequency band, whereas DhruvaPro can be programmed to any frequency band. You can change it on the fly. That's something no one has, and that's what we are bringing in. It would add a lot of flexibility to the receiver system,” Kanchetla explains.
He adds that DhruvaPro integrates with any processor and can receive navigation signal across any frequency band, allowing receiver systems to use multiple navigation satellite systems without replacing hardware.
MumbaiSemi has completed multiple pilots and is currently pre-revenue. However, the deeptech startup expects to generate revenue soon.
One challenge, Kanchetla says, is that customers operating in large-scale sectors like vehicle tracking, freight management, and logistics require full receiver modules consisting of RF and digital baseband chips with certain interfaces.
MumbaiSemi is focused on making its technology easy to integrate. By simplifying the system architecture, the company is enabling receiver module manufacturers to seamlessly upgrade their hardware and reduce their reliance on imported modules.
“The deployment cycles are very long,” he says. “Customers ask us to give them a compatible receiver module that they can plug in and replace their existing one.”
The founder believes that by delivering a highly adaptable, indigenous alternative to legacy chips, the company is well positioned to serve both domestic and global daily navigation needs.
Building an RF chip company
MumbaiSemi operates from IIT Bombay's SINE incubator. DhruvaPro was developed by the same team at IIT Bombay and subsequently licensed to the startup. The company’s newer development work is being carried out internally.
Kanchetla sees MumbaiSemi as part of India’s efforts to develop a domestic semiconductor ecosystem. While government initiatives have helped accelerate chip design, he believes the country still needs to build capabilities in packaging, system integration, and fabrication.
“The technology is not new to us. It's just that the entire business and the ecosystem building around it are new,” he says.
Kanchetla expects the company to pursue a formal funding round within six months, after achieving additional milestones.
While DhruvaPro remains its immediate focus, MumbaiSemi is also developing a next-generation navigation chip aimed more directly at end-user applications, including vehicle tracking and high-value asset tracking.
The startup is exploring opportunities beyond satellite navigation as well.
“We have a few ideas that could greatly help upcoming technologies, such as high-frequency lidar communications, and high-speed data-centre communications,” Kanchetla says.
Over the next five years, the company aims to establish itself as a specialist supplier of highly engineered RF chips for global markets.
“We believe MumbaiSemi is one place where we can build such chips. In the next five years, we see ourselves producing very high-quality chips for the world,” Kanchetla says.
MumbaiSemi is part of YourStory's Tech30 cohort—a showcase of India's most promising startups of 2026, unveiled at TechSparks Bengaluru.
Edited by Teja Lele