About Kandou
Kandou makes chip-to-chip links that move data faster over copper. Its Chord signaling sends data across groups of correlated wires, using n plus 1 wires to carry n bits, instead of one pair per signal, which the company says gives more bandwidth for less power than standard SerDes, the circuits that convert data between parallel and serial form. Kandou began as a spin-off from EPFL, the Swiss technical university, founded by Amin Shokrollahi, and is based near Lausanne, Switzerland.
Kandou was founded in 2011 and is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is listed under ASICs, Interconnect & Networking. Reported funding is $225M Series A (March 2026).
Compute Technologies
- ASICs
What Kandou works on
ASICs
An ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, is a chip designed to do one job or a narrow set of jobs. Its circuits are fixed when the chip is made. A CPU can run any program; an ASIC does what it was designed for and nothing else.
Interconnect & Networking
Interconnect is the set of links that move data between chips, between boards and between racks. It includes wires on a package, cables inside a server, and the network switches and optical fibre across a data center. A processor is only as useful as the speed at which it can get data in and out.
Also in Switzerland
Ligentec, STMicroelectronics, Fastree3D, Lumiphase, Enlightra
