Intel spinout Articul8 raises over half of $70M funding round at $500M valuation for enterprise AI

Intel spinout Articul8 raises more than half of $70M round at $500M valuation | TechCrunch

Articul8, an enterprise AI company spun out of Intel in early 2024, has secured more than half of a planned $70 million funding round at a $500 million pre-money valuation, according to its CEO, as it looks to capitalize on growing demand for AI systems in regulated industries. The Series B funding round is structured in two installments, with the first led by Spain's Adara Ventures, Articul8 founder and CEO Arun K. Subramaniyan (pictured above, center) said in an interview. He declined to disclose the size of the initial installment, but said the company expects to close the round in the first quarter of this year. Articul8's valuation for its current funding round marks a roughly fivefold increase from the company's $100 million post-money Series A valuation in January 2024. Since then, the Santa Clara-based company said it has surpassed $90 million in total contract value -- the cumulative value of all signed customer contracts -- from 29 paying customers, including Hitachi Energy, AWS, Franklin Templeton, and Intel. Subramaniyan told TechCrunch that Articul8 was not under pressure to raise capital, describing the company as revenue-positive following a series of large enterprise contracts. "We are not cash-strapped," he said. The company expects to finish the year with annual recurring revenue of just over $57 million, Subramaniyan said, with roughly 45% to 50% of that already recognized. Articul8 develops specialized AI systems that operate within customers' own IT environments, rather than relying on shared, general-purpose models. Instead of selling standalone models, the company packages its technology as software applications and AI agents tailored to specific business functions, targeting regulated industries such as energy, manufacturing, aerospace, financial services, and semiconductors, where accuracy, auditability, and data control are critical. "Our competition is pretty much everybody," said Subramaniyan. "But today, the major competitors are the cloud service providers, because they have realized that their model, as the general-purpose [offerings], are all commodities." He added that Articul8's focus on specialized systems appeals to customers who need predictable results and clear audit trails, something that is harder to achieve with general-purpose models run on shared cloud platforms. Articul8 plans to use the Series B proceeds primarily to expand research and product development and to scale its operations internationally, with a focus on Europe and parts of Asia. Adara Ventures' participation will help speed-up the European expansion plan, as the European Investment Fund backs the Madrid-based VC firm's energy fund, Subramaniyan said. The company is also looking to scale in markets including Japan and South Korea, where it has begun working with large enterprise customers, he noted. India's Aditya Birla Ventures also participated in the ongoing round, Subramaniyan stated. Articul8 works with large tech groups including Nvidia and Google Cloud, Subramaniyan said, adding that Amazon Web Services is both a customer and a partner for the company on some deployments. The company employs 75 people, with about 80% focused on R&D, and teams spread across the U.S., Brazil, and India.

Articul8 reels in $35M+ for its AI application platform - SiliconANGLE

Articul8 AI Inc., a startup that helps companies build artificial intelligence applications, has closed the first tranche of a $70 million funding round. TechCrunch reported today that the investment was worth over $35 million. Adara Ventures led the deal with participation from chipmaker NXC Corp., Aditya Birla Ventures and others. Articul8 is now valued at more than $500 million. Santa Clara, California-based Articul8 spun out of Intel Corp. in 2024 with the backing of DigitalBridge, a private equity firm currently being acquired by SoftBank Group Corp. It sells an AI platform derived from technologies developed by the chip giant. Intel uses the software to power an AI assistant that helps its engineers troubleshoot fab equipment. According to Articul8, its platform also lends itself to a range of other use cases. The software includes a collection of pre-packaged AI agents that each focus on a different set of tasks. One analyzes manufacturers' engineering diagrams to find ways of making production lines more efficient. Another helps utilities optimize grid infrastructure. Articul8 also provides agents for banks, carmakers and other companies. The newest addition to Articul8's agent lineup, the Table Understanding Agent, debuted last month. It's designed to extract information from spreadsheets. According to Articul8, the agent is better than ChatGPT at data interpretation tasks such as determining whether a text snippet is the title of a column or a table. The agents that ship with Articul8's platform are based on custom AI models. Companies can use those models to build automation applications. Articul8 says that custom AI software can be deployed on its platform in under ten weeks, which is about four times faster than the rollout times offered by the competition. A built-in tool called LLM IQ Agent API helps developers identify the most suitable AI model for a new application. Usually, comparing different AI models requires software teams to put together custom evaluation datasets, which can take a significant amount of time. Articul8 says that the LLM IQ Agent API skips that step. Some applications use not one but multiple AI models. Articul8's platform includes a module called ModelMesh that can coordinate the models used by a service, monitor their performance and generate audit logs. The module works with not only the platform's built-in models but also third-party algorithms. Articul8 expects to generate $57 million in revenue this year. It currently has 29 customers including Intel, Amazon Web Services Inc. and other tech industry players. The company plans to grow its installed base by investing its newly raised funding in feature development and international expansion initiatives. Articul8 expects to close its Series B round later this quarter.

Aditya Birla Ventures Backs AI Startup Articul8 in $70M Funding Round

Aditya Birla Ventures has taken a significant step by investing in Articul8 AI, an innovative startup specializing in generative AI. This investment comes as part of Articul8's ambitious Series B funding, set to raise an impressive $70 million. With a soaring valuation exceeding $500 million, Articul8's secure AI platform is gaining traction in a rapidly growing market. Aditya Birla Ventures (ABV) has invested in Articul8 AI, a fast-growing enterprise generative AI (GenAI) startup, as part of the first tranche of its oversubscribed Series B funding. Other investors in the round include Adara Ventures and NXC Corporation. The company plans to complete the final closing of the round in the first quarter of 2026, bringing in more long-term partners. The Series B is expected to raise around $70 million, valuing Articul8 at more than $500 million -- five times its valuation in its previous funding round less than two years ago. The company also continues to receive backing from strategic investors such as DigitalBridge and Intel. Since launching, Articul8 has signed contracts worth over $90 million, more than triple the total in 2024. The growth reflects strong demand from enterprises looking for secure, industry-specific AI solutions. Articul8's platform, powered by its ModelMesh™ reasoning engine, helps companies build, deploy, and manage AI applications entirely within their own secure environments. Its models consistently deliver better results than general-purpose AI systems. For example, its A8-Energy model scored 96.9% accuracy on specialised regulatory and infrastructure tasks, compared with 71.3% for standard AI models. "We're at a clear inflection point for enterprise AI," said Arun Subramaniyan, Founder & CEO of Articul8. "Enterprises are starting to operationalize AI in environments where trust, precision, and accountability are non-negotiable. This new funding reflects the confidence our customers, partners, and investors have in our approach to enterprise AI, and it positions us to scale globally with the right long-term partners." Aryaman Vikram Birla, Founder of Aditya Birla Ventures, added: "Generative AI is rapidly becoming a strategic necessity for businesses. Articul8's platform helps companies worldwide build and deploy AI applications efficiently, unlocking value from their proprietary data. We have strong belief in the founding team, and this investment aligns with our goal to support outstanding founders building global businesses of tomorrow." Recently, Articul8 has added new features that improve AI understanding of tables and structured data, making it better at handling complex, industry-specific tasks. The company has also achieved several milestones: Named foundational GenAI provider for the Open Power AI Consortium by EPRI, in collaboration with NVIDIA Selected as a launch partner for Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol Earned Amazon Web Services (AWS) Generative AI Competency and the new Agentic AI Specialization Chosen by Meta and AWS for the exclusive Startups: Building with Llama program Launched a next-generation multi-agent platform at the Paris Air Show to support aerospace engineering The Series B funds will be used to expand globally, improve the company's AI technology, and grow enterprise deployments in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.