Sowmyan Rajagopalan

Sowmyan Rajagopalan is the founder, CEO, and CTO of Thalia Design Automation, a Wales-based semiconductor EDA company he founded in 2011. Of South Indian heritage, Sowmyan studied Electronics Engineering at the University of Madras and later completed a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering specialising in Digital VLSI Design at the University of Tennessee. His academic grounding in chip design, combined with over 18 years of hands-on experience in analog IP strategy and EDA methodologies, laid the foundation for Thalia's creation.

Before founding Thalia, Sowmyan worked as an EDA and IP engineer and CAD Engineering Manager at Micrel Inc. in San Jose, California, where he developed methodologies for power management integrated circuits and identified a critical gap: the near-total absence of automation in analog design. He also founded Kato Semiconductors in 2011, providing comprehensive analog and mixed-signal design services. These experiences shaped his conviction that a software-led approach could dramatically reduce design cycle times for the global semiconductor industry.

Thalia's flagship product, the AMALIA platform, is an AI-enhanced IP reuse software suite that enables semiconductor companies to migrate, refine, and optimise analog, mixed-signal, and RF IP designs across technology nodes — with customers reporting cycle time reductions of up to 40%. The company has raised over £5.5 million from investors including Mercia Ventures and Deepbridge Capital, holds partnerships with TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Cadence, and Siemens, and has filed multiple patents in EDA design. Sowmyan was awarded a £2.1 million funding round in 2024 and continues to lead Thalia's global expansion into China, Israel, and beyond.