Machine Discovery, a software company that uses machine learning technology to accelerate compute-intensive optimization and simulation tasks, has secured £4.5 million of funding from various investors including BGF and East Innovate, Foresight WAE Technology Funds, UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), Oxford Technology, and independently managed by Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Ltd. This investment will allow the company to grow its engineering and business development teams in the UK and USA, driving commercial adoption of its technology across the semiconductor design space and in other markets.
The company was spun out of the University of Oxford by researchers in the physics department, and it is led by its CEO Bijan Kiani and non-executive chair Janet Collyer, who each have over 20 years of experience in the electronic design tools space. Other co-founders including Professor Gianluca Gregori and Professor Sam Vinko are continuing with their contributions in an advisory capacity while connecting the company to the research community.
Machine Discovery’s AI platform offers the ability to manage complex collaborative projects across large teams, with a high number of simulation runs. The platform’s novel emulation technology creates, from conventional simulation outputs, neural-network-based models for real-time prediction, while its optimization engine uses AI algorithms for optimization and sampling, and combines simulation and neural-network model outputs to enable the exploration of a significantly larger design space at a record speed.
“With cutting-edge machine learning technology and a management team with deep industry expertise, we believe Machine Discovery is poised for rapid adoption and growth,” said Luke Rajah, investor at BGF. “Early customer results in analog semiconductor design have shown the potential of the technology to massively accelerate the time to develop new products, which will enable leading semiconductor players to differentiate themselves in the market.”
Overall, the investment will help Machine Discovery grow its business and market its technology in new areas.
