British startup CuspAI announced Monday that it has secured $450 million in a new funding round, drawing support from the UK government and the investment fund of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The company is working to use artificial intelligence to discover previously unknown materials that could reshape major industries, including the semiconductor sector.
Alongside the fundraising announcement, CuspAI unveiled the AI Materials Foundry — a coalition of more than 45 companies, including chip designer Nvidia and social media giant Meta. The group aims to pool the computing power necessary to build software that helps researchers identify and develop new materials.
The Series B funding round was led by investment firms Kleiner Perkins and NEA, pushing CuspAI’s total valuation to $2.6 billion. The company has outlined plans to grow its presence across the United States, the Asia-Pacific region, and Europe.
In a blog post published on Medium, CuspAI co-founders Chad Edwards and Max Welling made the case for urgency: “If we don’t make progress fast, the next 50 years of industrial progress will be constrained by a single challenge: the world needs materials that don’t yet exist.”
The company says the collaboration is designed to break through what it describes as a materials bottleneck — a shortage of advanced substances holding back progress in semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
CuspAI’s AI platform, called MIRA, is designed to let partners run complete discovery processes, described as going “from generative materials design through simulation, synthesis route planning and coordinated experimental validation.”
New investors joining the round include the UK’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, and the Netherlands’ Invest-NL.
The startup also announced that Advanced Micro Devices board member and semiconductor industry veteran Abhi Talwalkar has joined its advisory board, alongside prominent AI researchers Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton.
Additionally, CuspAI said it has brought on former Apple and Google executive John Giannandrea to help build out its U.S. foundry operations.
