StoryFunding
CuspAI raises $450M Series B at a $2.6B valuation led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA
CuspAI, a Cambridge, UK startup that uses AI to design new materials, raised $450 million (£334 million) in a Series B led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA, valuing it at $2.6 billion. It also launched the AI Materials Foundry, a network of more than 45 founding members that pool data, labs, computing and expertise, coordinated through its MIRA platform. The aim is to cut the years it takes to go from an idea for a material to a tested one.
- Other investors: Bezos Expeditions, Glade Brook, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, StepStone, the UK Sovereign AI Venture Fund, Invest-NL and John Doerr.
- Foundry members include Nvidia (computing), Meta's FAIR team (its Universal Model for Atoms), Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, Hitachi High-Tech and Merck.
- MIRA runs the whole cycle: generate candidate materials, simulate them, plan how to synthesise them and coordinate lab tests at partners.
- Targets: materials bottlenecks in semiconductors, clean energy and advanced manufacturing. Founded in 2024 by Chad Edwards and Max Welling.