Key Highlights British startup CuspAI secured $450 million in Series B financing, reaching a $2.6 billion valuation Backing comes from UK government, Jeff Bezos’ investment vehicle, AMD Ventu
CuspAI, a UK-based artificial intelligence company, has successfully completed a $450 million Series B funding round that values the enterprise at $2.6 billion. This marks significant growth from its $520 million valuation achieved in September of last year.
Introducing CuspAI’s AI Materials Foundry.
We’re launching a global network to fundamentally accelerate how we discover and design the physical building blocks of our world. pic.twitter.com/2pcj9J6JWD
— CuspAI (@cusp_ai) July 20, 2026
Leading the investment were venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and NEA. Additional participants included Bezos Expeditions, the investment arm of Jeff Bezos, the UK’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, AMD Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, and the Dutch government-backed Invest-NL.
Operating from Cambridge, the company is positioning artificial intelligence as a transformative tool for accelerating materials discovery across the semiconductor sector and beyond.
Alongside its funding announcement, CuspAI unveiled the AI Materials Foundry this Monday. This collaborative initiative brings together over 48 corporations and academic institutions, featuring prominent names like Nvidia, Meta, and Hyundai Motor Group.
The foundry’s mission centers on combining computational capabilities and scientific expertise to create software tools that enable researchers to identify and develop novel materials more efficiently and economically than traditional approaches allow.
The company’s proprietary platform, named MIRA, executes complete discovery workflows — spanning generative design of materials through computational simulation and laboratory validation.
A primary focus for CuspAI involves finding substitutes for scarce metals such as ruthenium and iridium currently essential in chip production. These elements pose significant supply chain vulnerabilities that semiconductor manufacturers are actively seeking to mitigate.
Chief Executive Chad Edwards noted that chipmakers and their suppliers are “frantically searching for new materials.” He described the company as being “literally pulled by all four limbs” due to intense demand from semiconductor supply chain participants.
Initially, CuspAI concentrated on applications in carbon capture and water purification technologies before shifting its strategic focus toward semiconductor materials within the last year.
Geetika Gupta from Nvidia highlighted the chipmaker’s need for innovative materials spanning energy storage solutions and data center thermal management. She indicated Nvidia anticipates engaging through the Foundry in trilateral partnerships involving CuspAI and additional collaborators.
The company’s recent talent acquisitions include John Giannandrea, a veteran of both Apple and Google, who is establishing CuspAI’s California presence. Abhi Talwalkar, an AMD board member and semiconductor industry expert, has joined the advisory board alongside renowned AI researchers Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton.
The majority of the newly raised capital will be allocated to expanding laboratory operations in Cambridge, Singapore, and California’s San Francisco Bay Area.
Notwithstanding substantial financial backing and industry interest, CuspAI has not yet generated a candidate molecule advanced enough for commercialization beyond laboratory environments.
An initial carbon capture collaboration with Meta researchers narrowed down 300 trillion potential structures to 10 promising candidates. Less than 10 underwent synthesis, with none demonstrating superior performance compared to existing commercial solutions.
The company is currently applying the same molecular library to identify materials capable of eliminating persistent “forever chemicals” from water supplies. Finnish chemical company Kemira has committed to evaluating 20 of these newly designed structures throughout this year.
Co-founder Max Welling explained that the materials discovery field has faced constraints from insufficient data availability, limited testing infrastructure, and inadequate computational resources — challenges that CuspAI aims to address through its foundry collaborative network.
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