Updated
Updated · Forbes · Aug 15
Olix Triples Valuation to $3.3 Billion After $312 Million Funding Round
Updated
Updated · Forbes · Aug 15

Olix Triples Valuation to $3.3 Billion After $312 Million Funding Round

3 articles · Updated · Forbes · Aug 15

Summary

  • $312 million in new funding lifted London-based AI chip startup Olix to a $3.3 billion valuation in early August, tripling its worth in six months.
  • Arm, Fundomo, Hudson River Trading, Reed Hastings and the UK government's Sovereign AI fund joined the round, backing Olix's push to build specialized photonic inference chips.
  • Founder James Dacombe, 25, owns about 30% of Olix, making him Europe's youngest self-made billionaire; he also retains a 12% stake in brain-monitoring startup CoMind.
  • Olix aims to ship chips in the second half of 2027, betting customers will want lower-power alternatives to Nvidia-style general AI processors and scarce high-bandwidth memory.
  • The raise lands in an increasingly crowded AI chip race that includes d-Matrix, MatX, Etched, Fractile and Groq, underscoring a broader startup boom minting ever-younger billionaires.

Insights

Is Europe's largest semiconductor VC raise a stroke of genius for AI sovereignty, or a massive gamble on unproven photonics?
Can a 25-year-old dropout's billion-dollar bet on light-powered chips actually fracture Nvidia's AI dominance by 2027?