Fractile, a UK startup building a new AI chip has announced £12 million in seed funding. With this investment, the total funding raised by Fractile accounts for £14 million.
The round was co-led by Kindred Capital (which invested in LabGenius and Lottie), NATO Innovation Fund (which recently invested in Isar Aerospace), and Oxford Science Enterprises, with participation from Cocoa and Inovia Capital. Also, angel investors, including Hermann Hauser (co-founder, Acorn, Amadeus Capital), Stan Boland (ex-Icera, NVIDIA, Element 14 and Five AI), and Amar Shah (co-founder, Wayve) took part in this round.
What challenge does it tackle?
Today’s AI chips are the biggest constraint to better AI performance. Every large AI company currently relies on fundamentally similar chips, which are well-suited to training LLMs but not to inference (the process of running live data through a trained model). This means AI models are very expensive to run, their performance is inhibited, and their potential future capabilities are restricted. It also makes it hard for AI model builders to deliver meaningful differentiation. UK-based Fractile is taking a radically different approach to chip design for AI inference.
What does the company do?
Founded in 2022 by 28-year-old artificial intelligence PhD, Walter Goodwin and world-class team with senior hires from NVIDIA, ARM, and Imagination, Fractile has developed a new AI chip touted to be capable of running state-of-the-art AI models up to 100x faster and 10x cheaper than existing hardware.
Fractile’s transformative computing technology will enhance collective AI capabilities by enabling the largest and most capable neural networks of today and tomorrow to run faster, more efficiently, and more sustainably.
In addition to vast speed and cost advantages, it offers substantial power reduction. Fractile’s system is targeting 20x the TOPS/W of any other system visible to the company today. This allows for more users to be served in parallel per inference system, within the case of LLMs for example, more words per second are returned to those users, thereby making it possible to serve many more users for the same cost.
Dr. Walter Goodwin, CEO and Founder of Fractile said: “In today’s AI race, the limitations of existing hardware – nearly all of which is provided by a single company – represent the biggest barrier to better performance, reduced cost, and wider adoption. Fractile’s approach supercharges inference, delivering astonishing improvements in terms of speed and cost. This is more than just a speed-up – changing the performance point for inference allows us to explore completely new ways to use today’s leading AI models to solve the world’s most complex problems. We’re thrilled to have raised our funding from investors with a wealth of experience in the AI and chip industries, continue to grow our world-class team and further our technological development and partnerships.”
Investors’ views
John Cassidy, Partner at Kindred Capital: “AI is evolving so rapidly that building hardware for it is akin to shooting at a moving target in the dark. It’s a major technical challenge but, with the AI inference chip market projected to be worth $91B by 2030, there’s also huge growth potential. Because Fractile’s team has a deep background in AI, the company has the depth of knowledge to understand how AI models are likely to evolve, and how to build hardware for the requirements of not just the next two years, but 5-10 years into the future. We’re excited to partner with Walter and the team on this journey.”
Andrea Traversone, Managing Partner at NATO Innovation Fund: “AI is one of the most transformational technologies of our time. Staying at the forefront of AI innovation is key to building a secure future and advancing defence, security, and resilience across the Alliance. We are thrilled to be supporting Fractile, a company whose computing technology can enhance our collective AI capabilities by enabling computing power to run faster, more efficiently, and sustainably.”
Sam Harman, Head of Deep Tech at Oxford Science Enterprises: “Fractile has developed a radically innovative approach to solve one of the AI sector’s biggest challenges. We’re delighted to be supporting them and look forward to seeing the company accelerate its development while contributing to the UK’s growing reputation as an amazing place to build an AI company.”
Stan Boland, angel investor: “There’s no question that, in Fractile, Walter is building one of the world’s future superstar companies. He’s a brilliant AI practitioner but he’s also listening intently to the market so he can be certain of building truly compelling products that other experts will want to use at scale. To achieve this, he’s already starting to build one of the world’s best teams of semiconductor, software, and tools experts with track records of flawless execution. I’ve no doubt Fractile will become the most trusted partner to major AI model providers in short order.”
What do we think about Fractice?
Fractile, a UK-based AI chip startup, is poised to revolutionise AI inference with its innovative design, promising faster and cheaper performance than existing hardware. With a strong team and investment, Fractile aims to challenge industry giants like NVIDIA. Its transformative technology could significantly enhance AI capabilities, making it a key player in the AI hardware market’s future.
