Normal Computing raises $50M to accelerate silicon design
The US-based company builds AI for the semiconductor industry and is developing a new class of computing hardware, using its software to design its own hardware IP.
New York-based Normal Computing has announced USD 50 million in strategic funding led by Samsung Catalyst Fund, bringing total funding to more than USD 85 million.
New investors also include Galvanize, Brevan Howard Macro Venture Fund, and ArcTern Ventures, alongside existing investors Celesta Capital, Drive Capital, Eric Schmidt’s First Spark Ventures, and Micron Ventures, according to a media release.
Normal builds AI for the semiconductor industry and is developing a new class of computing hardware, using its software to design its own hardware IP.
“Datacenters are expected to hit an energy wall around 2030. Finding more energy is not a durable strategy. Meeting growing ‘intelligence per dollar per Watt’ demands a fundamentally novel architecture, and a unification in design methodology,” said Faris Sbahi, CEO of Normal Computing. “Normal EDA exists to accelerate custom silicon to market by 2x today, and, over time, to enable 1000x gains in efficiency with our platform.”
“Our industry is facing unprecedented transformation propelled by AI, and the complexity of leading-edge semiconductor chip design has increased dramatically,” said Dede Goldschmidt, SVP & Managing Director, Head of Samsung Catalyst Fund. “Normal has assembled a strong team with broad experience across AI and semiconductors. The platform they have built has the potential to offer faster time-to-market for the most demanding chip design customers in the ecosystem. We are very excited to support them and lead this financing round.”
“Most of the advanced computing landscape is oriented toward the next incremental improvement. ARIA exists to fund the ideas where the potential impact is not marginal but transformational, even when the technical risk is high,” said Dr. Suraj Bramhavar, Programme Director of ARIA’s Scaling Compute programme. “Normal’s team has taken a fundamentally unconventional approach and delivered working silicon in CN101. That is an exceptionally rare outcome for work this ambitious and we are excited to witness this next phase of the journey.”
