CuspAI confirms $100m+ raise from global heavyweights as Hyundai joins throng

Business Weekly reported on August 11 that we understood the funding had been received from Temasek, Singapore's state-owned investment fund, and Silicon Valley fund NEA.

CuspAI is building an AI ‘search engine’ for new materials – enabling customers to specify the exact properties they need, and to generate candidate materials up to 10x faster than traditional discovery methods.

It can be revealed now that Hyundai Motor Group is among the company’s customers and partners to work on sustainable energy applications; Kemira the Helsinki NASDAQ-listed company will work on PFAS "forever chemicals" removal from water while Meta will focus on carbon capture including the world's largest direct air capture database ODAC25. CuspAI teases that more partnerships are being lined up - including in the semiconductor sector.

Two new advisers have also been announced: Martin van den Brink, the former President and CTO of ASML, and Lord (John) Browne, the former BP CEO, Chair of the Francis Crick Institute and co-Chair of the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology. The advisory board currently includes Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun and others.

The company was founded in 2024, emerging from stealth with $30m Seed funding. Cusp AI’s co-founders are Dr Chad Edwards, a chemist turned DeepTech entrepreneur who previously scaled quantum computing unicorn Quantinuum, and Professor Max Welling, a globally recognised AI pioneer and former Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research, and VP of Technology at Qualcomm.

This latest funding round was co-led by US fund New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Temasek, with participation from NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Samsung Ventures, Hyundai Motor Group, and returning investors.

Other firms participating include Basis Set Ventures, FJ Labs, Giant Ventures, LocalGlobe, Northzone, Prosus Ventures, Tiferes Ventures and Touring Capital. Angel investors include Durk Kingma (OpenAI Co-Founder), Zoubin Ghahramani (Google DeepMind VP Research), Arash Ferdowsi (Founder of Dropbox), Thomas Wolf (Founder of Hugging Face) and Victor Riparbelli (Founder CEO of Synthesia).

An AI ‘search engine’ for the material world: CuspAI’s platform acts like a search engine for materials, enabling customers to specify the exact properties they need and generating new, synthesisable candidates up to 10x faster than traditional discovery methods. CuspAI’s technology is materials agnostic, with potential for impact across multiple industries where breakthroughs can unlock billions in value.

CuspAI CEO and Co-founder Chad Edwards said: “Next-generation AI compute, clean air and water and sustainable energy – these multi-billion-dollar global challenges share a common barrier: materials. CuspAI’s mission is to change that. In just a year, we’ve gone from concept to partnerships with world leaders in automotive, semiconductors, energy, and climate.

“This funding allows us to scale our platform and deliver transformative materials to market faster. We’re grateful for the support of our investors, and the strategic backing from our customers as we accelerate into our next phase of our growth.”

Lila Tretikov, Partner and Head of AI Strategy at NEA and former Deputy CTO at Microsoft, who will join the CuspAI board, said: “AI’s most profound promise emerges when it moves beyond the everyday and becomes a catalyst for discovery, deepening our command of chemistry, biology, and physics, and accelerating the design of materials that redefine what is possible. CuspAI harnessed this power to shutter long-accepted engineering limits, enabling breakthroughs across industries that can elevate the quality of life for generations to come in months rather than decades.”

Brooke Seawell, NEA Venture Partner added: “AI isn’t just promising a revolution in materials science, it’s already delivering one. By decoding the complexity of our material world, it’s starting to unlock breakthroughs from climate mitigation to faster, more efficient compute. With their unique approach and bold vision, the CuspAI team is well-positioned in this transformative space and I'm excited to be a part of it.”

The company will now seek to expand its global footprint, including scaling its operations in the US and Asia to serve increasing customer demand. Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, with teams in Amsterdam and Berlin, the company partners with global leaders in automotive, energy, semiconductors and climate.

Co-founder and CTO Max Welling said: “Humanity faces a compelling opportunity: effective, thoughtful AI development could help solve some of our toughest global challenges, from developing sustainable energy systems to curbing climate change.

"CuspAI is building the next generation tools to make this possible. Breakthrough materials could be the solution to delivering large-scale scientific and environmental impact, alongside progress for industry. Our team is uniquely positioned to deliver on that potential.”