Cambridge-based firm CuspAI, which is building an AI system for materials discovery, has raised a $450m (£334m) Series B round.
The mega round was led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA, with significant participation from Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions. The round values Cusp at $2.6bn (£1.9bn) and will allow the firm to grow faster across the US, APAC and Europe.
Additional new investors include Glade Brook Capital Partners, Lux Capital, AMD Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners, StepStone, Britain’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund, the Netherlands’ Invest-NL and John Doerr.
The investment announcement coincides with CuspAI’s launch of the AI Materials Foundry, bringing together a global network of data, labs, compute and scientific expertise for the design of new materials.
The collaboration seeks to end the materials bottleneck constraining progress. Semiconductors, clean energy and advanced manufacturing are among the industries facing the same challenge.
CuspAI says while the engineering needed for innovation is well understood, the constraint is materials.
Over 45 organisations are founding members including NVIDIA, who will provide the compute infrastructure, and Meta’s Fundamental AI Research Team, who develop the Universal Model for Atoms (UMA) – a frontier atomistic chemistry model for materials science.
Other founding firms include Hitachi High-Tech, Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group and Merck.
CuspAI’s proprietary AI platform, MIRA, sits at the heart of the network and enables partners to run full discovery cycles, from generative materials design through to simulation, synthesis route planning, and coordinated experimental validation.
“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,” says Chad Edwards, CEO and co-founder of CuspAI.
“That’s what we’re on a mission to solve – combining frontier agentic AI with deep domain expertise, exclusive data access and close customer partnerships. We’re delighted to be joined by more than 45 leaders in their fields to advance materials discovery.”
