British artificial intelligence startup CuspAI has raised $450 million in a Series B funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA, reaching a valuation of $2.6 billion. The round attracted major investors including the UK government’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, and Invest-NL. The company plans to expand its operations across the United States, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.
Alongside the funding announcement, CuspAI unveiled the AI Materials Foundry, a coalition of more than 45 companies, including Nvidia and Meta, aimed at pooling computing resources to accelerate the discovery of next-generation materials. The initiative seeks to address the materials bottleneck affecting industries such as semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing by using AI to design, simulate, and validate entirely new materials.
CuspAI said its AI platform, MIRA, enables end-to-end materials discovery, covering everything from generative design and simulation to synthesis planning and experimental validation. The startup has also strengthened its leadership by appointing semiconductor veteran Abhi Talwalkar to its advisory board alongside AI pioneers Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton, while former Apple and Google executive John Giannandrea will help establish the company’s U.S. foundry operations.
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