Fractile Raises $720 Million for AI Chip Development
British company Fractile has raised $720 million in a Series C funding round with support from the Sovereign AI Fund. The company plans to deliver its first chips and systems next year.
British startup Fractile, which develops specialized chips for artificial intelligence, has closed its Series C funding round. The round was led by Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Redpoint, with participation from the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund.
Fractile is not only developing hardware. The company is also creating a machine learning compiler designed to increase the execution speed of large language models on its chips. This comprehensive approach is used to position itself as a company in the field of advanced AI.
According to the UK government's assessment, Fractile's valuation exceeded £5 billion following the round. The Financial Times and a Reuters source estimated it at approximately $7 billion, though this figure was not confirmed in the government's statement.
A key feature of the development is its memory architecture. After changing its strategy, the startup has focused on DRAM: this type of random-access memory is planned to be placed on top of each chip. Fractile expects this approach to reduce the usual trade-off between memory capacity and performance.
The approach is also aimed at agent AI tasks, where models perform long sequences of actions. Fractile CEO Walter Goodwin stated that the company still has a significant amount of work ahead, and the funds raised will enable the delivery of the first chips and systems next year.
