Innovation Industries

– Axelera AI announced that it has successfully closed a seed investment round of $12m.
– The round was led by Bitfury and joined by global nanoelectronics R&D center imec and deep-tech venture capital funds Innovation Industries and imec.xpand.
– The funding will support the company’s development of an industry-defining product powering AI applications at the edge.
– Axelera AI was incubated by Bitfury Group in 2019, formerly operating as Bitfury AI until the company came out as an independent entity this year.
– Building on its extensive research and development focused on integrating world-class hardware and software technologies for edge and cloud-to-edge enterprise solutions, Axelera AI joined forces with imec in early 2020 to develop groundbreaking computing architecture for high-performance AI.

– Axelera AI, a Dutch AI semiconductor startup, emerged from stealth with $12m in seed funding led by Bitfury, a security and infrastructure provider for the Bitcoin blockchain.
– Innovation Industries Fund participated in the round, which the company says will support developing of AI apps at the edge.
– Edge AI, the processing of AI algorithms on devices like drones, digital signage, cameras, and sensors, derives from edge computing, which starts from the same premise: Data is processed and managed at internet of things endpoints.
– Edge AI is advantageous in industries like retail, robotics, and manufacturing, where it can deliver lower latency than sending data to remote servers — and avoid disruptions and costs in the process.
– Incubated by Bitfury, Axelera says it’s developing a chipset to accelerate AI and machine learning algorithms at the edge.