Amit Narayan

Founder & Chairman at AutoGrid

Amit is the Founder and CEO of AutoGrid, Inc. From 2010 to 2012, he was the Director of Smart Grid Research in Modeling & Simulation at Stanford University, where he led an interdisciplinary project related to modeling, optimization and control of the electricity grid and associated electricity markets. Prior to founding AutoGrid, Amit was the Vice President of Products at the publicly traded company Magma Design Automation, Inc. (Nasdaq: LAVA), where he led the product development and product management teams responsible for Magma’s flagship product in the design implementation area.

Over one third of all semiconductor chips used in consumer electronic devices — such as smart phones, blue-ray players and video games — were designed using products developed by Amit’s team at Magma. Prior to joining Magma, Amit founded Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. (BDA), a venture-backed company in analog and radio-frequency semiconductor design software and served as its founding CEO and later Vice President of Engineering, responsible for all research and product development activities, as well as customer engagements. Under Amit’s leadership, BDA saw its products adopted by over 100 semiconductor companies in the world (including 20 out of the top 25). For his work at BDA, Amit received the EDN’s “Innovation for the Year” award in 2006. Amit received his B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. He has published over 25 papers about design automation, holds seven U.S. patents and is an active advisor to several startup companies in the Bay Area.