CuspAI has raised $450 million in Series B funding to expand its artificial intelligence platform for discovering new materials. The financing values the British startup at approximately $2.6 billion. Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates co-led the round, with significant participation from Jeff Bezos’ investment firm, Bezos Expeditions. Other investors included Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners, StepStone, the U.K.’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, Invest-NL and John Doerr.
Existing investors Temasek, Basis Set Ventures, Giant Ventures, Touring Capital, Prosus, Phoenix Court and Northzone also participated. The Series B follows a financing of more than $100 million completed less than one year earlier.
CuspAI plans to use the funding to expand across the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The company is opening an office in Singapore while growing its teams in Cambridge, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo and the U.S.
Alongside the financing, CuspAI launched the AI Materials Foundry, a global collaboration connecting data, computing infrastructure, laboratories and scientific expertise. The network includes more than 45 founding partners across technology, manufacturing and materials research.
Founding participants include NVIDIA, Meta, Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, Henkel, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and Lam Research. The Henry Royce Institute, the U.K.’s national institute for advanced materials research, has also joined the initiative.
The foundry is intended to support the complete materials discovery process, from computational design and simulation to synthesis planning and experimental validation. Participants will contribute AI models, specialized datasets, high-performance computing resources and laboratory capabilities.
CuspAI’s MIRA platform uses generative and agentic AI to design materials with specific properties. Researchers can define the characteristics they need and use the platform to generate, evaluate and prioritize potential material candidates.
The company is targeting materials challenges affecting semiconductors, clean energy and advanced manufacturing. New materials could help chipmakers increase performance, improve production processes and reduce dependence on scarce resources.
Materials development has traditionally required long cycles of theoretical research, laboratory testing and manufacturing validation. CuspAI aims to shorten those timelines by using AI to explore large design spaces and identify the candidates most likely to perform successfully.
The company previously worked with chemicals producer Kemira to develop materials capable of removing PFAS compounds from water. That project evaluated approximately 300 trillion possible structures and produced more than 5,000 designs before narrowing the field to about 20 priority candidates.
CuspAI believes its underlying approach can be applied across industries because customers begin by defining the physical or chemical properties they require. Potential applications include semiconductor manufacturing, carbon capture, water treatment, energy systems and industrial production.
The company has appointed semiconductor executive Abhi Talwalkar to its advisory board. Talwalkar serves on AMD’s board and is chairman of semiconductor equipment company Lam Research.
CuspAI is also working with former Apple and Google executive John Giannandrea to establish its U.S. foundry operations. AI researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun are among the company’s advisers.
The financing gives CuspAI additional resources to connect AI-generated discoveries with physical testing and commercial production. Its broader goal is to establish shared infrastructure that accelerates materials development across industries facing scientific and supply-chain constraints.
KEY QUOTES:
“The world needs materials that don’t yet exist.”
Dr. Chad Edwards and Professor Max Welling, Co-Founders of CuspAI
