$50 million funding for Bristol tech company

Bristol-based Graphcore has today announced a $50 million funding round by Sequoia Capital, as the machine intelligence company prepares to ship its first Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) products to early access customers at the start of 2018.

The funding enables Graphcore to significantly accelerate growth to meet the expected global demand for its machine intelligence processor. #

The funding will be dedicated to scaling up production, building a community of developers around the Poplar software platform, driving Graphcore’s extended product roadmap, and investing in its Palo Alto-based US team to help support customers.

Nigel Toon, CEO at Graphcore said: “Efficient AI processing power is rapidly becoming the most sought-after resource in the technological world. We believe our IPU technology will become the worldwide standard for machine intelligence compute. The performance of Graphcore’s processor, compared to other accelerators, is going to be transformative, whether you are a medical researcher, roboticist, online marketplace, social network or building autonomous vehicles.

“At Graphcore, we are focused on building a successful, enduring company that can serve the needs of all of those communities, over the long term. Sequoia has a deep understanding of what it takes to scale and build a successful business and we are looking forward to a long partnership with them.”

The investment round has received support from a wide-range of investors including, Amadeus Capital Partners, Atomico, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, C4 Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Draper Esprit, Foundation Capital, Pitango Venture Capital and Samsung Catalyst Fund.

Sequoia partner, Matt Miller, will join Graphcore’s board of directors and Bill Coughran, partner at Sequoia, will join Graphcore’s technical advisory board.