CuspAI Just Raised €85M to Crush the Timeline of Materials Discovery

CuspAI, a Cambridge‑based AI materials discovery startup, has closed an €85+ million ( ~$100 million ) Series A round , co‑led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Temasek. Other participants include NVIDIA’s VC arm (NVentures), Samsung Ventures, Hyundai Motor Group, and returning investors. A number of prominent angel backers also joined in, including figures from OpenAI, DeepMind, Hugging Face, and others. The round comes just a year after its seed round of about €25.5 million.

CuspAI was founded in 2024 by Dr. Chad Edwards (chemist & entrepreneur) and Prof. Max Welling (AI researcher), combining expertise in deep learning, molecular/physics simulation, and materials science. Its platform acts like a “search engine” for new materials: customers describe the properties they need (for example for energy, clean water, PFAS removal, or semiconductor materials), and CuspAI generates synthesizable candidates. The company claims this approach lets them go from concept to candidate in months rather than decades, and much faster than traditional methods.

In its first year, CuspAI has already formed several strategic partnerships: with Hyundai for sustainable energy applications, Kemira (a chemical company) for PFAS removal, and Meta for work on carbon capture initiatives using large direct air capture databases. These show the company is targeting high‑impact sectors such as climate tech, energy, semiconductors, and environmental remediation.

CuspAI’s goal is to scale its platform globally (particularly in the U.S. and Asia) to meet increasing demand, and to push materials that solve urgent global challenges (like clean energy, clean water, carbon removal) toward commercialization much faster. Key differentiators are its speed, the materials‑agnostic nature of its platform, and the caliber of both its scientific founders and advisory board (which includes industry veterans).

Source: EU-Startups

M.A.