UK AI chip start‑up Fractile valued at $7bn after $720m raise

Fractile, a UK artificial‑intelligence chipmaking start‑up, has secured a $720 million Series C funding round, lifting its valuation to $7 billion.

Founder and CEO Walter Goodwin said the new capital will be used to scale and optimise “radically faster inference hardware” for agentic AI, aiming to tackle “the toughest problems”.

The round was led by Thrive Capital, Lightspeed, Redpoint and Founders Fund, with participation from the UK government’s Sovereign AI Venture Fund and the British Business Bank.

Fractile, founded in 2022, operates from London and Bristol and has previously hired staff in Taiwan and San Francisco. Its earlier May round raised $220 million at a valuation of around $1 billion.

UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan highlighted the investment as part of a drive to make Britain a world leader in AI technology, reduce reliance on overseas supply chains and create jobs across the country.

Source: Silicon Republic. Photo: Blackcurrant Great / Pexels.