Vaire Computing, a company using reversible computing to create near zero-energy silicon chips, has secured $4M in seed funding. 7percent Ventures, an ex-founder led, deep-tech fund, and Jude Gomila, an early investor in multiple unicorns including Astranis and Solugen, led the round. Several individual and institutional investors including Seedcamp, Clim8, Tom Knight, founder of Ginkgo Bioworks and inventor of modern reversible computing, and Jared Kopf, founder of Ramble.ai and former chief of staff to Peter Thiel, also participated in the round. The company had previously raised $500,000, bringing its total funding to $4.5M.
Reversible computing is an alternative to classic computing that performs calculations while generating a relatively negligible amount of heat, reducing energy consumption and the need for cooling. In addition to securing seed funding, Vaire Computing has hired Mike Frank, the world’s leading researcher in reversible computing, as Senior Scientist. With the addition of Dr. Frank, Vaire Computing now has the highest concentration of reversible computing talent in the world.
“Moore’s Law will be obsolete within the next four years – perhaps sooner given the rapid pace of AI innovation. In order to increase the world’s computing power, we need chips that offer more power without consuming more energy,” said Rodolfo Rosini, founder and CEO, Vaire Computing. “Vaire Computing’s near zero-energy chips promise advanced AI at a fraction of the energy cost with an architecture that can scale for decades. We are excited about this next phase of our company’s development and look forward to delivering our first chip in the next twelve months.”
Vaire Computing was founded by serial entrepreneur Rodolfo Rosini and Hannah Earley, a well-known reversible computing researcher from the University of Cambridge. The company’s seed funding will be used to hire additional engineering talent and fast track the company’s first prototype. Vaire was also recently one of only ten companies named to the second UK cohort of Intel Ignite, Intel’s global startup accelerator program for early-stage deep tech startups.
"Improving energy consumption and performance in chips by an order of magnitude unlocks vast revenue potential, as the GPU market alone is set to be ~$400bn within five years,” said Andrew J Scott, Founding Partner, 7percent Ventures. “Vaire Computing is different because its technology is innovative at a foundational level, positioning the company extraordinarily well to capture a huge chunk of the future AI chip, and ultimately, computer processor market."