Axelera AI
Axelera AI is a Netherlands-based chip company founded in 2021.[1] It develops AI processing units (AIPU) for robots and drones, as well as cars, medical devices, and security cameras.[2][3] The company's CEO is Fabrizio Del Maffeo.[4][3] In 2025, it received a grant of €61.6 million to develop its Titania chip for generative AI and computer vision processing from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking DARE project.[5] Previously it raised $200 million from Samsung and other investors.[6]
Funding
[edit]Axelera AI has raised multiple rounds of venture capital and public funding since its founding.
In 2021, the company raised approximately US$12 million in seed financing.[7] In October 2022, Axelera AI secured a Series A funding round of about US$27 million, led by Innovation Industries, and additionally received an innovation credit from the Dutch government valued at approximately US$6.7 million.[8] A follow‑on Series A extension in 2023 brought total Series A funding to around US$50 million.
On 27 June 2024, Axelera AI announced a Series B round of roughly US$68 million, described as one of Europe's largest oversubscribed Series B rounds in the fabless semiconductor sector.[9] Investors included the European Innovation Council Fund, Innovation Industries, Invest-NL, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Verve Ventures, Bitfury, and SFPIM.
In March 2025, the company was awarded a grant of up to €61.6 million from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking as part of the DARE (Digital Autonomy with RISC‑V for Europe) project to support the development of a high‑performance AI chiplet.[10]
By mid‑2025, Axelera AI was estimated to have raised more than US$200 million (over €200 million) in combined equity investment and public grants. In August 2025, reports indicated the company was seeking an additional funding round exceeding €150 million to expand its activities in edge‑AI and data‑centre markets.[11]
Products
[edit]Metis
[edit]Axelera AI’s first commercial chip family, Metis, is designed for edge-AI inference workloads such as computer vision, robotics, and embedded industrial applications. The Metis AIPU delivers a peak performance of up to 214 TOPS (INT8) with an efficiency of approximately 15 TOPS/W.[12] It is offered in several form factors, including M.2 accelerator modules, PCIe cards with one Metis processor, and higher-performance accelerator cards integrating four Metis AIPUs (up to ~856 TOPS).[13]
The Metis platform is supported by the company’s Voyager SDK and a model library aimed at simplifying deployment of AI inference at the edge.[14]
Europa
[edit]In 2025 Axelera AI introduced Europa, a next-generation inference processor targeting edge servers, enterprise systems, and rack-mount deployments. The chip is specified to provide up to 629 TOPS (INT8).[15] Europa incorporates Axelera’s second-generation digital-in-memory-compute (D-IMC) architecture across eight AI cores, along with two clusters of RISC-V vector cores used for pre- and post-processing operations.[16] The design includes 64 GB of memory, 200 Gb/s DRAM bandwidth, and 128 MB of on-chip L2 SRAM.[16]
Shipments of Europa-based PCIe accelerators are expected to begin in the first half of 2026.[17]
Titania and Future Development
[edit]Axelera AI has announced development of a future high-performance inference processor codenamed Titania, intended for data-centre-class compute and large-scale AI inference. In 2025 the company received funding from the EU’s EuroHPC Joint Undertaking to support the development of this RISC-V-based architecture.[18]
References
[edit]- ^ Lykiardopoulou, Ioanna (29 July 2024). "3 promising European startups in the race for next-generation chip". TheNextWeb.com. ProQuest 3085700240. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ Geschwindt, Sion (18 December 2024). "Dutch startups raised $3.5B in 2024. Here are the 10 largest funding rounds". TheNextWeb.com. ProQuest 3146228669. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ a b Bradshaw, Tim (21 July 2023). "Start-ups seek to challenge Nvidia's dominance over AI chip market". FT.com. ProQuest 2840193008. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ "India: DeepSeek gives Europe's tech firms a chance to catch up in global AI race". Asia News Monitor. 6 February 2025. ProQuest 3163503401. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ Van Klinken, Erik (6 March 2025). "Dutch startup Axelera AI raises over 60 million and unveils new chip". TechZine. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ Sterling, Toby (6 March 2025). "Dutch chipmaker AxeleraAI gets $66 million EU grant". Reuters. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI Funding Overview". Clay. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI – Our Story". Axelera AI. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI Raises $68M Series B". Axelera AI. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI Raises €61.6M and Unveils High-Performance AI Chiplet". Tech.eu. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI Funding: Europe's Chip Race". TechFundingNews. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ Di Paolo Emilio, Maurizio (21 November 2023). "Axelera AI Platform Accelerates Edge Application Deployment". EE Times. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI Accelerators". Axelera AI. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "Metis AIPU". Axelera AI. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "Axelera AI launches Europa chip for edge AI applications". DataCenterDynamics. 21 October 2025. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Europa KI-Chips: Axelera AI fordert Nvidia heraus". CRN.de. 22 October 2025. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "European chipmaker Axelera AI launches second AI inference chip". Reuters. 21 October 2025. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ^ "Dutch chipmaker AxeleraAI gets €66 million EU grant". Reuters. 6 March 2025. Retrieved 7 March 2025.