Cambridge-based CuspAI has announced the closure of its Series A funding round, raising $100M (nearly €85.40M).
The UK-based company works with partners in automotive, semiconductors, energy, and climate to develop materials that address global challenges in clean air and water, AI compute, and sustainable energy. It aims to enable progress in these sectors by removing materials-related barriers.
“Our platform acts like an AI ‘search engine’ for materials, enabling customers to specify the exact properties they need and generating new, synthesizable candidates up to 10x faster than traditional discovery methods,” mentions CuspAI in a statement.
“Our technology is materials agnostic, with potential for impact across multiple industries where breakthroughs can unlock billions in value.”
Investors supporting CuspAI
CuspAI’s Series A round was co-led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Temasek. Other participants include NVentures, Samsung Ventures, Hyundai Motor Group, Basis Set Ventures, FJ Labs, Giant Ventures, LocalGlobe, Northzone, Prosus Ventures, Tiferes Ventures, and Touring Capital.
Angel investors include Durk Kingma (OpenAI co-founder), Zoubin Ghahramani (Google VP Research), Arash Ferdowsi (founder of Dropbox), Thomas Wolf (founder of Hugging Face), and Victor Riparbelli (founder and CEO of Synthesia).
Lila Tretikov, Partner and Head of AI Strategy at NEA and former Deputy CTO at Microsoft, who will join the CuspAI board, says, “AI’s most profound promise emerges when it moves beyond the everyday and becomes a catalyst for discovery, deepening our command of chemistry, biology, and physics, and accelerating the design of materials that redefine what is possible.”
“CuspAI harnessed this power to shutter long-accepted engineering limits, enabling breakthroughs across industries that can elevate the quality of life for generations to come in months rather than decades.”
Capital utilisation
CuspAI says it will use the funds to scale its platform and bring materials to market more quickly.
The company has already formed partnerships with Hyundai focused on sustainable energy, worked with Kemira on PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) removal, and a partnership with Meta on carbon capture using the ODAC25 direct air capture database.
CuspAI added that additional semiconductor collaborations are forthcoming.
Dr Chad Edwards & Prof Max Welling, co-founders of CuspAI, say, “The closure of our Series A is a moment for us to reflect as founders on how far we’ve come in a remarkably short timeframe. This financing comes just one year after we came out of stealth with a $30M Seed round.”
“We’re excited about this milestone, and grateful for the support of our investors and the strategic backing from our customers. With eyes on the future, we know that success is built on more than capital — and now the hard work continues.”
“We can only make real-world impact by continuing to interate our platform, collaborating on meaningful use cases with industry, and delivering next-gen materials to market faster. We’ll also be scaling our operations in the US and Asia to serve increasing customer demand.”
“When we started Cusp just a year ago, we knew building both a frontier AI company and a new materials platform from scratch wouldn’t be easy. This round is a reflection of what our team has achieved in record time, but also a reminder of the work ahead.”
“The next breakthroughs in climate technology, batteries, semiconductors, and water purification will be achieved through iteration, partnerships, and a team that believes the future can be better. That’s what drives us.”
CuspAI strengthens leadership
CuspAI announced the appointment of Martin van den Brink, former ASML President and CTO, and Lord Browne, former BP CEO, to its board as part of its commercialisation plans.
They join existing advisors Prof. Geoffrey Hinton and Prof. Yann LeCun — Turing Award-winning “godfathers of AI” — as well as Prof. Kristin Persson and Verity Harding.
What did the investors have to say?
A Samsung Ventures spokesperson says, “CuspAI is developing a foundational platform at the critical intersection of artificial intelligence and materials science. We believe their approach has the potential to unlock significant innovation across a range of industries, and we are pleased to support them as they scale their vision.”
Brooke Seawell, NEA Venture Partner, mentions, “AI isn’t just promising a revolution in materials science, it’s already delivering one. By decoding the complexity of our material world, it’s starting to unlock breakthroughs from climate mitigation to faster, more efficient compute. With their unique approach and bold vision, the CuspAI team is well-positioned in this transformative space, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
Keith Noh, VP Head of ZERO1NE Group at Hyundai Motor Group, says, “Hyundai Motor Group is advancing human progress through innovation, and this requires embracing convictions that challenge the status quo. With CuspAI as our partner, we will leverage the power of AI to advance our performance and sustainability goals.”
“We believe novel materials offer an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate progress towards a better, cleaner, more efficient future.”
Antti Salminen, CEO of Kemira, adds, “We’re proud to be a commercial partner of CuspAI — we chose them because we see the clear potential for AI to speed up the precision and impact of new materials discovery, and they have fast emerged as the leaders in this approach.”
“Our first collaboration together is focused on removing PFAS, so-called ‘forever chemicals’, from water. This partnership allows us to harness the power of AI to drive materials innovation, improve efficiency and deliver superior and sustainable solutions to our own customers.”
