Eindhoven-based Axelera AI, an AI chip manufacturer that creates AI hardware and software platforms for Edge computing, announced on Tuesday, that it has attracted new investors to join its oversubscribed Series A round. This brings the company’s total amount raised to $50M (approximately €46.25M).
Verve Ventures, Fractionelera, and CDP Venture Capital have all invested in this round in recent months. While Innovation Industries increased its investment in the company becoming the largest investor.
Mario Scuderi, Senior Partner and head of Evolution Fund at CDP, says, “We are proud to contribute to the growth of Axelera AI, a great Italian-led European company that is expanding its R&D division in the Milan office by bringing know-how and expertise to a highly strategic market for the future such as semiconductors.”
Dr Massimo Vanzi, an expert in the fields of semiconductors, electronics, software and ICT, as well as the Senior Advisor, CDP Venture Capital SGR, was recently appointed to Axelera AI’s board of directors.
“Leading the democratisation of AI”
Founded in 2021 by Fabrizio Del Maffeo and Evangelos Eleftheriou, Axelera AI claims to be developing the world’s most efficient and sophisticated edge AI solutions. It offers Edge AI solutions through its Metis AI platform.
Last year, in December, the company officially unveiled the new Metis AI Platform, a holistic hardware and software solution to accelerate computer vision processing at the Edge.
The company’s hardware and software solution would compress the AI processing capabilities of an entire server into a single chip at a fraction of the power consumption and expense of existing AI technologies.
“Our Metis AI Platform – a holistic hardware and software solution for AI inference at the Edge – empowers computer vision applications to become more accessible and powerful than ever before. At its core is our new Metis AI Processing Unit (AIPU), which establishes new price/performance and performance/Watt standards,” says the company.
Axelera AI, which has offices in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and the UK as well as its headquarters at the AI Innovation Centre of the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, employs more than 120 people across 14 different nations.
The company claims that its team of AI software and hardware professionals includes former employees of Fortune 500 corporations and leading AI organisations.
Axelera AI will demonstrate its Metis AI platform and illustrate its value proposition at the Embedded Vision Summit 2023 in Santa Clara (May 22–24).
Aiming US expansion
Axelera AI says it will use the funds to support its global expansion and mass production of its first-generation AI acceleration platform, powered by its in-memory computing and RISC-V controlled dataflow technology.
The startup reports that a few months following their product announcement, over 350 clients expressed interest, almost 100 asked for a sample for testing, and over 50 joined up for the company’s Early Access Programme (EAP), which is currently accepting applications.
By offering advantages like collaborative hardware design and specialised assistance for software and machine learning, the EAP helps clients create next-generation computer vision solutions.
CEO Fabrizio Del Maffeo, says, “In just 20 months, we’ve achieved incredible milestones including the tape out of two cutting-edge AI chips, securing a total of $50M in funding, forging impactful partnerships and design -wins with industry-leading customers.”
With the appointment of Sander Arts, a marketer from Silicon Valley, as a marketing advisor, and Jonathan Ballon as a non-executive chairman, Axelera AI has also started extending its activities within the US.
The company is also actively hiring for a global vice president of sales, business developers, and technical support staff.
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