UK-based Machine Discovery, a Machine Learning (ML) software company, announced on Tuesday, September 26, that it has raised £4.5M (€5.17M) in a fresh round of funding.
The round was led by BGF and East Innovate. Other prominent investors include Foresight WAE Technology Funds, UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) managed by Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Ltd, and Oxford Technology.
A spin-off of the department of Physics of the University of Oxford, the company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its engineering and business development teams across the UK and the US.
“We thank our partners for their continued support at a key stage of the company’s development, enabling us to expand the number of users utilising our Discovery Platform and drive forward the company’s future innovations,” says Bijan Kiani, CEO of Machine Discovery.
Kiani and non-executive chair Janet Collyer developed the company with their expansive electronic design tools expertise, cultivated for over two decades.
The company’s co-founder and CSO, Muhammad Kasim, invented the core machine learning tech. And its current CTO, Brett Larder, developed the Discovery Platform prototype. Oxford professors Gianluca Gregori and Sam Vinko contribute in advisory roles.
Simplifying complex process
Machine Discovery offers a platform for predicting design behaviour. With offices in Oxford and Santa Clara, the software company specialises in machine learning-driven acceleration of compute-intensive optimisation and simulation tasks.
This machine-learning technology harnesses AI to streamline complex projects. The platform has also been known to aid nuclear fusion power plant research since May 2023.
As part of the Prosperity Partnership project, the research supports commercial fusion power plants to develop a scalable fusion power method for clean energy.
Machine Discovery says its platform enables efficient collaboration, rapid prediction model creation from simulation results, and extensive design exploration through AI algorithms.
“Machine Discovery is pioneering the use of machine learning to reduce product development cycles in a variety of sectors,” Kiani says.
Perks of analogue semiconductor
Machine’s Discovery’s emulation tech accelerates simulations, starting with semiconductor designs. This grants instantaneous predictive capabilities to augment integrated circuit design alongside existing tools and simulators.
“Early customer results in analog semiconductor design have shown the potential of the technology to massively accelerate the time to develop new products, which will enable leading semiconductor players to differentiate themselves in the market,” says Luke Rajah, investor at BGF.
Using neural networks, the company aims to cut analogue semiconductor development time in half by 2026.
“Complex simulations are critical to the work of almost all advanced technology companies and organisations. However, they are difficult to set up, require expensive experts, and take time to run. Some mission-critical simulations can take days, weeks or even months to get an answer. Machine Discovery’s technology solves these problems. Workflows are simplified, automated and standardised,” says Rory Scott Russell, investor at East Innovate.
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