News & Insights
Oxford Technology & Innovations EIS Fund (OTIF) subscribes to exascale compute company Salience Labs’ $11.5m Seed funding round
- Salience Labs Ltd, a spinout of the Universities of Oxford and Münster, raises $11.5m to develop ultra-high-speed photonics chip and accelerate exponential gains in AI
- The round was led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Cambridge Innovation Capital with participation from Yew Lin Goh of Leedon Park Ventures, Arm-backed Deeptech Labs and former CEO of Dialog Semiconductor Jalal Bagherli
- Salience Lab’s technology solves the widening market gap between AI demand for ultra-fast processing and Semiconductor industry supply
Oxford Investment Consultants LLP (OIC) is pleased to announce that the Oxford Technology & Innovations EIS Fund (OTIF) has subscribed to the $11.5m Seed funding round of exa-scale compute company Salience Labs Ltd. The round was led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Cambridge Innovation Capital, with participation from Yew Lin Goh of Leedon Park Ventures, Arm-backed Deeptech Labs and former CEO of Dialog Semiconductor Jalal Bagherli.
Salience Labs, a spinout company from Oxford and Münster Universities, is developing an ultra-high-speed photonics chip to accelerate exponential gains in AI.
The current technological age can be characterised by its unceasing demand for processing power, outpacing what standard Semiconductor technologies have left to offer. The speed of AI computation doubles every 3.4 months. To accelerate exponential advances, a new approach to compute is now required.
By computing using light to execute operations, Salience Labs can deliver massively parallel, ultra-high throughput processing performance on multi-chip processor within a given power envelope – bringing exascale compute to a wide array of new and existing processes and applications.
Vaysh Kewada, CEO and co-founder of Salience Labs said: “The world needs ever faster chips to grow AI capability, but the semiconductor industry cannot keep pace with this demand. We’re solving this with our proprietary ‘on-memory compute’ architecture which combines the ultra-fast speed of photonics, the flexibility of electronics and the manufacturability of CMOS. This will usher in a new era of processing, where supercompute AI becomes ubiquitous.“
Commenting on the investment, Freddie Hamilton of OIC said: “Salience Labs has assembled a terrific technical and commercial team to solve the problem of a lack of industry supply to meet an increasing demand for AI compute. Salience Labs’ potential to open exciting new AI compute horizons embodies OIC’s core goal of investing in the next-generation of truly transformative technology companies from world-leading universities. We’re thrilled to embark on our journey with Salience Labs and our new fellow co-investors.”
Further information on OIC, OTIF and Salience Labs can be found at