CuspAI, a British artificial intelligence startup based in Cambridge, has raised 450 million dollars in a Series B funding round that values the company at 2.6 billion dollars, up sharply from 520 million dollars last September.
The round was led by venture firms Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates, with backing from Jeff Bezos’s Bezos Expeditions as well as Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, Britain’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, John Doerr, Temasek and Prosus, among others.
The company uses AI models, scientific data and laboratory testing to help researchers design materials with specific properties, aimed at fields such as semiconductors, energy storage, climate technology and advanced manufacturing. It was founded by Chad Edwards and machine-learning researcher Max Welling, and its advisory board includes AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.
Alongside the funding, CuspAI launched what it calls the AI Materials Foundry, a coalition of more than 45 technology and industrial partners, including Nvidia, Meta, Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and Lam Research. The group is meant to pool computing power, laboratory access and scientific expertise on CuspAI’s platform.
“The world needs materials that don’t yet exist,” co-founders Chad Edwards and Max Welling said, framing the mission as building substances from scratch to meet modern needs.
The startup plans to expand across the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, opening a Singapore office and growing teams in Cambridge, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo and the US.
Why it matters: AI-designed materials could lead to cheaper batteries, faster chips and better clean-energy technology, the kind of advances that shape the cost of electronics and power everywhere, including Africa.
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