The round values Fractile at over £5bn and comes ahead of its chips coming to market.
US big-hitting VCs Lightspeed and Alphabet’s CapitalG have backed UK chip startup Fractile in a £500m-plus funding round, which values the startup at over £5bn, the UK government said today in a press release.
The UK Nvidia challenger, based in Bristol and London, designs chips for AI inference, the process of running an AI model.
Founded in 2022 by Oxford PhD Walter Goodwin, Fractile’s architecture keeps data directly on the chip, unlike standard chips that must constantly shuttle data between the processor and separate memory modules. It says this method can run LLMs up to a hundred times faster than existing hardware while lowering operational costs by 90 per cent. Fractile’s specialised chips are set to be ready for data centre deployment next year.
The lead invesetors in the Series C round, some of which has previously been reported, are Thrive Capital, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Lightspeed, and Redpoint. The UK’s Sovereign AI fund, the British Business Bank, Shopify, Balderton, Dragoneer and Blackrock also featured in the round, which Fractile said amounted to around £540m.
It follows its $220m Series B, which it announced in May this year, led by Accel, Factorial Funds, and Founders Fund. The Series B funding round valued Fractile at around £820m.
The investment comes as the UK looks to become a leader in parts of the AI stack and build up its sovereign capabilities in critical technologies, reducing dependence on fragile overseas supply chains.
AI minister Kanishka Narayan said: “For too long, Britain has produced some of the world’s best scientific ideas, only to see too much of the technology, industry and wealth they create built elsewhere. We are determined to change that. If AI is going to serve the British people, strengthen our public services and create good jobs across the country, Britain needs to build more of the technology that powers it.
“Fractile represents the very best of British ambition, bringing together world-class chip design, engineering and AI expertise to develop faster, cheaper and more energy-efficient hardware.”