European AI semiconductor leader earns backing from funds managed by Innovation Industries and SiteGround Capital along with EU institutions; edge-first architecture addresses AI's critical energy and cooling constraints

Axelera AI, the European leader in AI acceleration hardware, announced its latest funding round led by Innovation Industries, with participation from prominent funds and accounts including BlackRock and SiteGround Capital as new investors, as well as existing investors Bitfury, CDP Venture Capital, European Innovation Council Fund, Federal Holding and Investment Company of Belgium (SFPIM), Invest-NL, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Verve Investments. Axelera AI has attracted over $450 million in equity, grants and venture debt since incorporating in July 2021.

The largest investment ever in an EU AI semiconductor company comes as Axelera ships to its 500^th global customer across physical AI and edge AI in industries including defense and public safety, industrial manufacturing, retail, agritech, robotics, and security, firmly establishing the company as the global leader in power-efficient AI inference solutions.

Axelera AI’s success is rooted in a fundamental insight: to deploy AI at scale, the industry must first solve for energy consumption and cooling requirements. The company’s edge-first architectural approach delivers uncompromising AI inference performance that fits within the power and thermal envelopes of real-world deployment environments to drive real business value. And by providing high performance at the edge, companies can process data locally, which preserves privacy for their users and supports the increasing demand for sovereign solutions.

“Data centers are hitting power and cooling limits, and as analytics move closer to where data is being created, edge AI solutions must operate within strict energy and bandwidth constraints,” said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI. “We designed our architecture from the ground up to overcome these obstacles. Our edge-first approach isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about making AI deployment economically viable at scale for real-world applications while protecting data and privacy by processing customer information locally.”

Inference is projected to be a more than $250B market by 2030ⁱ. Over the life of a model, the cost of inference is 15x more than training and utilization is growing at 31x per yearⁱⁱ. But many organizations still struggle to transition from AI projects to generating value in production. Axelera’s tightly co-designed hardware/software solution simplifies deployment and maximizes performance of inference-based workloads. Axelera AI’s Europa and Metis platforms deliver the price/performance balance enterprise customers need while operating within the energy and thermal constraints of edge computing.

Rising Above Market Fragmentation

The edge AI semiconductor market has attracted over $60 billion in venture funding in just the past three yearsⁱⁱⁱ, creating significant fragmentation and confusion for customers. Axelera AI’s strong financial foundation, proven technology, customer traction, scaled manufacturing through partnerships with TSMC and Samsung, and growing ecosystem of software and integration partners position the company for long-term growth and success.

“Axelera is solving one of the most fundamental constraints in Edge AI adoption: the cost and energy efficiency of inference at scale,” said Rogier Ketelaars, investment manager at Innovations Industries. “We believe the company is uniquely positioned to become a foundational player in the next generation of AI infrastructure, and we’re excited to back the outstanding Axelera team that combines deep technical leadership and real commercial execution.”

The funding round represents strong institutional validation of this architectural philosophy, with BlackRock’s participation underscoring the financial community’s recognition that solving AI’s infrastructure constraints is critical to the technology's continued growth and market expansion.

Unique Ecosystem Approach Drives Market Accessibility

Recognizing that hardware alone doesn’t drive adoption, Axelera AI has intentionally built an ecosystem that makes AI acceleration accessible to a broader market. The company’s Partner Accelerator Network, launched last year, represents a differentiated go-to-market approach that brings together software vendors, model makers, system integrators, solution providers, and technology partners to accelerate customer deployment and reduce time-to-production.

In addition, Axelera AI’s significant investment in software and deep commitment to usability enables AI developers to easily integrate Axelera AI’s acceleration into existing workflows without extensive redesign. By solving for both the technical constraints of energy and cooling, and the practical constraints of cost, ecosystem accessibility and software usability, Axelera AI removes the barriers to AI deployment at scale.

The added capital will accelerate Axelera AI’s manufacturing scale, expand its customer success organization and Partner Accelerator Network, and continue advancing the software tools and SDK that have made the company’s platforms accessible to AI developers worldwide.

About Axelera AI

Axelera AI is a European AI semiconductor company developing next-generation AI acceleration hardware for edge computing and data center applications. With an edge-first architecture that addresses AI’s critical energy and cooling constraints, Axelera AI has deployed across more than 500 customers including in telecommunications, aerospace, and enterprise sectors. The company’s Europa and Metis platforms deliver high-performance AI inference solutions that enable deployment at scale within real-world power and thermal budgets. Through its Partner Accelerator Network and Voyager SDK, Axelera AI provides a comprehensive ecosystem approach that ensures accessibility and rapid deployment. Axelera AI is supported through equity, grants and other non-dilutive funding instruments by leading funds including Innovation Industries, BlackRock, Samsung Catalyst Fund and other top-tier institutional and strategic investors.

Supporting Quotes

“SiteGround Capital is proud to join Axelera AI on this exciting journey,” shared Ivo Tzenov, founder of SiteGround. “Axelera’s approach to AI acceleration—bringing inference to the edge where data is created—directly addresses two of the most pressing challenges facing the AI industry: the unsustainable energy demands of centralized data centers and growing privacy concerns. This is the right technology, led by the right team, at precisely the right moment in the market.”

“Axelera AI’s thesis has always been clear: as AI moves from building models to putting them to work, the compute demands of running AI will far outpace training it. That requires a fundamentally different chip architecture, purpose-built to process data at speed—at low power and cost—right where it’s generated. This more than $250 million investment reflects growing market conviction that this team has built exactly that,” said Jonathan Ballon, chairman, Axelera AI.

“Axelera AI was created and incubated within Bitfury, giving us a unique perspective on the team’s execution and vision from the very beginning,” said Val Vavilov, group CEO of Bitfury. “The company’s progression from an internal initiative to a standalone business with meaningful customer traction and market validation underscores both the strength of the leadership team and the relevance of its technology. Axelera’s approach to high-performance, energy-efficient AI inference positions it to play a defining role in the next generation of AI deployment. We’re excited to continue backing the company as it scales globally.”

“CDP Venture Capital is proud to continue investing in Axelera to establish a European leader in fast and efficient AI inference hardware, taking advantage of rapidly growing markets across key sectors such as space and defense. Axelera is expanding rapidly, developing a unique HPC chip solution, and building strong collaborations with key partners,” said Alessandro Scortecci, Direct Investments Director of CDP Venture Capital. “The time is right to develop high performance inference solutions that enable better privacy standards and support the European quest for sovereign AI solutions.”

"The European Investment Council is pleased to support Axelera AI as they scale their AI acceleration technology,” said Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board. “This investment reflects our commitment to fostering European deep tech innovation that addresses global challenges. Axelera's edge AI solutions directly tackle two critical issues—reducing the massive energy consumption of AI infrastructure and ensuring data sovereignty—while demonstrating strong commercial traction with customers worldwide. This is exactly the type of strategic innovation Europe needs to maintain its competitive edge in the global AI economy."

“As a Dutch investor, we’re proud to support homegrown innovation that's competing on the global stage in AI acceleration,” said Johan Stins from Invest-NL. “The Netherlands has always punched above its weight in semiconductor technology, and this team exemplifies that heritage. Their customer traction across Europe and beyond, combined with a solution that addresses both the energy transition challenges we face locally and the global data sovereignty concerns, makes this a strategic investment for our portfolio. The leadership team’s experience scaling deep tech companies gives us confidence they can build a true European champion in AI infrastructure.”

“Samsung Catalyst Fund aims to identify and support category-defining entrepreneurs and emerging companies at the intersection of semiconductor innovation and AI,” said Dede Goldschmidt, SVP & Managing Director, Head of Samsung Catalyst Fund. “Axelera AI developed a differentiated edge-first AI inference architecture. We are pleased to continue to support the team as they execute to capture a massive market opportunity.”

“SFPIM plays an important role in the long-term stability of the Belgian economy by contributing to the anchoring of strategic assets through “smart capital solutions,” said Alan Vandenberghe, investment manager at SFPIM. “We continue to invest in Axelera AI because their market is inflecting right now. Indeed, the customers are actively seeking alternatives to centralized cloud AI but also privacy regulations are tightening and energy costs are escalating. The experienced Axelera team has built technology that meets this momentum, and the customer adoption rates validate the urgent need. Through this investment, SFPIM aims to strengthen Axelera’s links with Belgium, particularly through research and development centers in Leuven, university partnerships, and ecosystems. Axelera can play a significant role in Belgium and Europe in terms of economic sovereignty in the semiconductor sector.”

ⁱ AI Inference Market worth $254.98 billion by 2030 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets™
ⁱⁱ Training vs. Inference: The $300B AI Shift Everyone is Missing
ⁱⁱⁱ AI Chip Market to Grow 10x in the Next Ten Years and Become a $300 Billion Industry - Edge AI and Vision Alliance

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260224272201/en/

axelera@voxuspr.com

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