AI material discovery startup CuspAI reportedly raising $400M round
CuspAI Ltd., a startup working to speed up material discovery, is reportedly in the process of raising a $400 million funding round.
The Financial Times reported today that the term sheet has been signed but the transaction is still being finalized. According to the paper, Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions and Kleiner Perkins are among the participants. The investment will reportedly value CuspAI at $2.6 billion, more than five times what it was worth after its last funding round.
UK-based CuspAI is led by Chief Executive Officer Chad Edwards (pictured, right) and Chief Technology Officer Max Welling (left). Edwards previously co-founded a quantum processor startup called Cambridge Quantum. Welling, in turn, is an AI professor at the University of Amsterdam. CuspAI’s advisors include Nobel Prize laureate Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, two of the world’s most foremost AI researchers.
Hardware projects sometimes require scientists to develop new materials. For example, a chipmaker working on a new interconnect might need a conductor that withstands heat better than the existing options on the market. Developing a material that meets a project’s requirements can take years.
