Cambridge-based materials startup CuspAI has raised more than $100m in a Series A round, as investors bet big on companies developing AI tools to speed up costly discovery processes across a range of sectors.
The round was co-led by US fund NEA and Temasek, with participation from Nvidia’s VC arm and Samsung Ventures. Other European VCs participating include Giant Ventures, LocalGlobe and Northzone, alongside cofounders at AI companies including OpenAI's Durk Kingma, Synthesia's Victor Riparbelli and Hugging Face's Thomas Wolf.
CuspAI is building what it calls an AI ‘search engine’ for the material world. Its platform helps customers — which include clients in the automotive, chip, energy and climate sectors — to specify the exact properties they need and generate new, synthesisable candidates.
The startup says this can speed up the process tenfold compared to traditional discovery methods.
“Next-generation AI compute, clean air and water and sustainable energy — these multi-billion-dollar global challenges share a common barrier: materials,” says cofounder and CEO Chad Edwards. The funding will allow Cusp to deliver materials to market faster, Edwards says.
The startup is riding a wave of investor interest in startups building AI tools promising big reductions in time and cost to develop new materials, industrial parts and medicines.
Earlier this year, DeepMind spinout Isomorphic Labs raised $600m for its AI drug discovery platform. PhysicsX also picked up $135m for its AI software platform to quickly design parts for manufacturing projects in industries like defence and aerospace.
Founded in 2024, CuspAI has inked deals with carmaker Hyundai, Meta and Finnish chemicals company Kemira. It says it has more unannounced deals in the semiconductor sector.
Martin van den Brink, a former exec at ASML — the Dutch chip company which recently invested €1.3bn in Mistral — and former BP CEO, current Chair of the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology, John Browne will join CuspAI’s advisory board to expand commercial efforts.
The fresh funds come a year on from CuspAI’s $30M seed round, and will see the company look to scale operations in the US and Asia.
