James Dacombe's Olix AI Chip Startup Triples Valuation to $3.3bn With $312M Funding Round

James Dacombe, 25, triples AI chip start-up's valuation to $3.3bn

James Dacombe's AI chip start-up Olix has raised $312mn from investors including Arm, tripling its valuation to $3.3bn in six months. The company, founded in 2024 by the 25-year-old entrepreneur, has sought new funding in an effort to outpace the many rival start-ups vying to compete against Nvidia in the booming AI infrastructure market. The London-based group's new $312mn round is led by New York-based investment firm Fundomo, alongside SoftBank-backed Arm, quant firm Hudson River Trading and Netflix's co-founder Reed Hastings. The deal values Olix at $3.3bn, including the fresh capital raised, up from just over $1bn in February when the start-up raised $220mn. Dacombe told the FT that the era of a single Nvidia chip handling every AI task was over, arguing "we are moving into a world of specialisation". "Today, where there is such an economic prize from being able to run very large powerful [large language models] fast and to a large number of users at a low cost, it really pays to disaggregate and have custom silicon that is good at that." Dacombe also serves as chief executive of brain-monitoring start-up CoMind, which he founded as a teenager and has raised about $100mn. Wall Street anxiety about the scale of increasingly debt-fuelled AI infrastructure spending has triggered a sell-off in chipmakers and memory companies in recent weeks. But private investors continue to pour capital into chip start-ups that promise to unlock faster or more efficient ways of serving AI systems to customers. Olix's chip designs do not rely on some of the semiconductor components currently in shortest supply, such as leading-edge silicon, high-bandwidth memory or advanced packaging. Alongside the funding, Olix has appointed Matt Briers, former chief financial officer at UK fintech Wise, as its CFO. Olix employs more than 140 staff across its offices in London, Bristol, Toronto and Austin, with many hires joining from US Big Tech groups and semiconductor companies. It plans to "tape out" its chips later this year, the final stage of the design and testing process before moving to manufacturing. It expects to deliver its first products to customers next year. Dacombe told the FT that since its last financing, it had "accelerated significantly" in the development of its chips, which it plans to sell as part of a server rack that also includes software and networking equipment. "The velocity and culture of delivering when you say you will deliver is really key," he said. "We are on track to be the fastest company to go from founding to full chip tape out of any company in this space." It has made extensive use of AI tools to accelerate development of components such as the compiler that enables AI software to run on its chips. Completing that compiler was a crucial proof point for investors in the latest round. Speed is vital if Olix is to beat its better-funded rivals to market and meet huge demand from prospective customers at a time when cash is flooding into the market for Nvidia alternatives. Bristol-based Fractile raised $220mn in May. In July, US start-up Etched closed a $300mn round at a $10.3bn valuation from investors including Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, while SambaNova raised $1bn at an $11bn valuation led by General Atlantic. Olix's biggest differentiator is its use of "photonic interconnect", which uses lasers to move data between large clusters of chips faster and with greater energy efficiency.

A 25-year-old just tripled his London chip startup to $3.3bn, betting against Nvidia and the shortage.

Olix, founded two years ago by a 25-year-old, has tripled its valuation to $3.3bn. Its pitch is an AI chip that skips the components the rest of the industry is fighting over. A London startup two years old has just become one of Britain's boldest bets against Nvidia. Olix has raised $312m and tripled its valuation to $3.3bn in six months. Its founder, James Dacombe, is 25. And its pitch has a timely twist: a chip that skips the very parts the rest of the industry is fighting over. The New York firm Fundomo led the Series B, Sifted reported. Arm, the quant trading firm Hudson River Trading and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings also took part. So did the UK government, through its Sovereign AI fund, which counts Olix as one of its first bets. The round values the company at more than triple its February mark of about $1bn. Dacombe's pitch is that the age of one chip doing everything is ending. The industry is "moving into a world of specialists," he told the FT. He likens an AI data centre to a factory whose product is the token. Making one token takes hundreds of operations with different hardware needs, yet every stage runs on one general-purpose chip. Olix wants to give each stage its own machine. Its X-1 platform spreads a model across several specialised chips, wired together by an optical network that moves data with light rather than copper. The first chip, DX-1, handles the stage where a model writes its output. For very large models, Olix claims it can run faster and on less power than a general-purpose part. The timely part: it dodges the shortage The detail that matters most right now is what Olix's chips leave out. The DX-1 uses no high-bandwidth memory and no advanced packaging, the company says, holding a model in fast on-chip memory instead. Those happen to be the components in shortest supply, the squeeze now pushing up prices on everything from laptops to phones. The pedigree around the founder is heavy for a company this young. Olix has put Nick McKeown, a Stanford professor who helped invent modern networking, on its board. Its new finance chief, Matt Briers, spent nine years as chief financial officer of Wise and took the fintech public. The firm now has more than 140 staff across the UK, US and Canada. Still a bet, not a product For all the momentum, Olix has not shipped a chip. It plans to finish its design later this year and reach its first customers in 2027, selling the silicon inside a full server rack. Only then will its headline performance claims be tested against real workloads, rather than a pitch deck. It is also small next to its American rivals. Etched is valued at $10.3bn and SambaNova at around $11bn, and both dwarf Olix's $3.3bn. The public markets are wary too, with chip stocks jittery over how much debt is funding the AI build-out. Investors are betting the market is big enough to carry more than a few winners. AI chips are worth roughly $84bn this year and could approach $1tn early next decade, and money keeps pouring into AI hardware. For the UK, Olix is a rare shot at owning a slice of it. Whether the silicon delivers is the only number that will settle it.

James Dacombe's AI chip startup Olix raises $312m By Investing.com

Investing.com -- AI chip startup Olix raised $312 million in a funding round led by Fundomo, the Financial Times reports. SoftBank-backed Arm, Hudson River Trading, and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings participated in the round. The funding values the company at $3.3 billion, triple its valuation from six months ago. James Dacombe founded the startup. Olix appointed Matt Briers as its chief financial officer. Briers previously served as chief financial officer at UK fintech company Wise. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.