Bezos and UK back $2.6bn CuspAI to slash rare metal use
A Cambridge-based artificial intelligence firm has secured a $2.6 billion valuation with backing from Jeff Bezos and the British government to build a platform that cuts the semiconductor industry's reliance on scarce metals.
Cambridge-based CuspAI has raised $450 million in a Series B round, reaching a $2.6 billion valuation just two years after its founding. The round was co-led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and drew investment from Jeff Bezos alongside the UK government’s sovereign AI fund.
The startup is developing what it calls an AI Materials Foundry, essentially a search engine for discovering new chemical compounds. Its immediate commercial goal is to drastically reduce research times and eliminate the need for rare metals like iridium and ruthenium in the supply chains of global chipmakers.
To deploy this technology, CuspAI has assembled a coalition of more than 48 technology companies, industrial manufacturers and research institutions. The partnership includes Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Hyundai, with the shared aim of using advanced AI models to improve battery efficiency, energy networks and semiconductor performance.
“Most big leaps in technology come down to a material, and the next set, from cheaper carbon capture to semiconductors and cleaner water, is stuck waiting on materials nobody has discovered yet,” said Josh Coyne, a partner at Kleiner Perkins. “CuspAI built a search engine that changes that.”
For the UK government, the investment represents a strategic effort to anchor a homegrown AI champion capable of competing on the global stage. CuspAI is only the fourth company to receive capital from the state's dedicated AI fund, which typically takes equity stakes of £1 million to £10 million in early-stage British firms with domestic founders.
The new capital will fund an aggressive international expansion. The company plans to open a new office in Singapore while scaling its existing headcount in Cambridge, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo and the US. Former Apple and Google executive John Giannandrea is currently helping establish the company's American operations.
The urgency of this physical expansion is tied to hard limits in industrial production. “If we don’t make progress fast, the next 50 years of industrial progress will be constrained by a single challenge: the world needs materials that don’t yet exist,” said co-founders Dr Chad Edwards and Prof Max Welling. “The world simply can’t make the progress it needs to with known materials, that much is clear.”
