European AI chip startups: who they are, what they raised, what ships
US AI-chip startups raised $4.7bn in 2026 to mid-April, against $800m for European ones, about 6 times as much (Dealroom via CNBC, 17 Apr 2026). Europe's confirmed 2026 rounds have since reached about $1.4bn (our sum to 11 Oct 2026), led by Olix's $312m in August. One US round, SambaNova's $1bn in July, was bigger than any two European ones. Of 19 European companies tracked, 3 ship product.
US AI-chip startups out-raised Europe's 6 to 1 in early 2026
Venture funding raised by AI-chip startups, 2026 year-to-date as of mid-April 2026 ('so far in 2026'). Reported
$4.7bn
US AI-chip startups, 2026 to mid-April
Dealroom via CNBC
$800m
European AI-chip startups, same period
Dealroom via CNBC
$1.4bn
Confirmed European 2026 rounds to date
our sum of the rounds in this tracker, to 11 Oct 2026; not Dealroom's method
$312m
Europe's biggest 2026 round: Olix
3 Aug 2026
United States$4.7bn
Europe$800m
The Dealroom figures are as published by CNBC; Dealroom's definitions and underlying data are not public and are not republished here. Our running sum counts only rounds confirmed by the company or a named outlet: Our own sum of disclosed 2026 rounds in this dataset for independent European startups (excl. Graphcore's SoftBank intra-group $457m and undisclosed VSORA/Semidynamics rounds): Optalysys ~$31m (Jan), Axelera $250m (Feb), Olix $220m (Feb), Fractile $220m (May), Openchip ~$133m (Jun, state equity), Olix $312m (Aug), Euclyd $231m (Sep).
Funding round · CNBC lists $500m rounds in 2026 for MatX, Ayar Labs and Etched. Dealroom separately reports Etched closed $300m at $10.3bn in Jul 2026 (may be a further round/extension — unchecked).
Groq's December 2025 deal with Nvidia was an asset and licensing deal, not a funding round, so it is left out of the bars. Several US amounts are as reported by CNBC rather than by the company.
None named; first customer deliveries planned 2027 (Dealroom); targets hyperscalers and governments (Plural via CNBC). source
Axelera AI
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Metis; Europa AIPU (629 INT8 TOPS); Titania (HPC, planned 2027) · Edge and enterprise inference accelerator (digital in-memory compute)
$450m
24 Feb 2026 more than $250m · Venture round (unlabelled)
shipping
500th customer shipped by Feb 2026; CEO told Reuters (Sep 2026) 600+ customers and contracts worth 'tens of millions'; Europa validated in Dell and Supermicro systems; inference partition of Italy's IT4LIA AI Factory (EuroHPC, Apr 2026); HammerHAI (DE). source
Black Semiconductor
Aachen, Germany
Graphene electro-optic BEOL platform (FabONE pilot line) · Graphene-based photonic interconnect (chip-to-chip optical I/O) for AI/HPC — not an AI processor
$275m
12 Jun 2024 €254.4m · Equity round + IPCEI ME/CT grant
Unnamed first chip and systems (due 2027) · Data-centre inference accelerator (memory and compute interleaved / in-memory)
$235m
13 May 2026 $220m · Series B (~$1bn post-money, reported)
pre-silicon
Initial deal to sell ~$250m of chips to Anthropic (Bloomberg via Dealroom, Aug 2026); not confirmed by the companies. source
Euclyd
Eindhoven, Netherlands
craftwerk silicon; craftwerk station (CWS) · Data-centre inference silicon and rack systems (processor-memory co-design); also IP licensing
$231m
15 Sept 2026 more than €200m ($231m per CNBC) · Series A
pre-silicon
None deployed; in April 2026 said it was negotiating with four potential customers (CNBC). source
SiPearl
Maisons-Laffitte, France
Rhea1 (80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, HBM2E, TSMC N6); Athena1 (dual-use, H2 2027); Rhea2 (chiplet, tape-out 2027) · HPC/AI server CPU (Arm), sovereign processor
$140m
8 Jul 2025 €130m (final tranche €32m) · Series A (final close)
sampling
First order: Rhea1 for JUPITER cluster module (EuroHPC/Jülich) via Bull — first samples delivered 22 Sep 2026 ('first significant revenue'); Alice Recoque (France); IT4LIA inference partition with Axelera; partnership with Semidynamics (May 2026). source
Openchip & Software Technologies
Barcelona, Spain
BER10 (64-bit RISC-V, 4 cores + vector unit, sub-2nm GAA) · RISC-V processors/accelerators for AI and HPC (sovereign chips)
$133m
29 Jun 2026 €115.77m · State equity (SETT, Next Tech / Recovery Plan funds)
sampling
None named. ~300 staff (Spanish government, Jun 2026). Reported 15% stake in Kalray (secondary, unchecked). source
Q.ANT
Stuttgart, Germany
NPU 2 / Native Processing Server (NPS) · Photonic (thin-film lithium niobate) co-processor for AI/HPC
$80m
30 Oct 2025 undisclosed (second close; Series A total $80m) · Series A second close
shipping
IONOS first commercial customer (19 May 2026); deployed at LRZ (Munich) and Jülich Supercomputing Centre. source
Cervell NPU IP; 3nm inference ASIC (unnamed); Gazzillion memory subsystem · RISC-V AI inference silicon and rack systems (memory-centric); also RISC-V IP licensing
–
8 Apr 2026 undisclosed · Strategic investment
taped out
IP licensees incl. UPMEM and YorChip (company releases); EuroHPC/EPI partner; rack-scale partnership with SiPearl (May 2026); HPE quoted as interested. source
Salience Labs partly unconfirmed
Oxford, UK
OC-32M 32-port optical switch; 64-port OCS demo (ECOC 2026) · Silicon-photonic all-optical circuit switches for AI data-centre networking (pivoted from photonic compute) — not an AI processor
–
7 Feb 2025 $30m · Series A
sampling
Manufacturing partner Tower Semiconductor (Feb 2026); test collaboration with Keysight. source
Ireland. None of the 19 companies is Irish. Ireland's chip presence is manufacturing, not AI-chip design: Intel's Leixlip Fab 34 and Analog Devices in Limerick (see the Chips Act ledger). Irish data centres run on accelerators imported from Asia and the US (see server imports).
Our reading. The gap is in scale, not in numbers of companies. Europe has a credible spread of designs, from edge inference (Axelera, shipping) to photonics (Q.ANT, with systems at LRZ and IONOS as first commercial customer), but its biggest rounds are a third the size of single US rounds, and most of its data-centre designs won't reach customers before 2027–2028. Several of the largest cheques came from the state (Spain's SETT for Openchip; IPCEI grants for Black Semiconductor) or from strategic investors (Samsung in Euclyd, SK hynix in Semidynamics).
Funding totals are disclosed rounds as reported (equity, and public grants where the company announced them together); undisclosed rounds count as zero. Dollar conversions of euro rounds use an approximate rate for the round's year and are marked as converted. Funding databases are not republished; Europe-wide totals are their published headlines, attributed. Status is the latest public milestone (shipping, sampling, taped out, pre-silicon); companies rarely publish volumes. Scope note: Non-European HQ skipped: Tenstorrent, Lightmatter, Celestial AI, Cerebras, Groq, Etched, Mythic, Extropic, Rain (US); Untether (CA); NeuReality, Hailo (IL); Rebellions (KR). Codasip omitted (RISC-V CPU IP, not an AI accelerator). Kalray omitted (listed company).
Questions people ask
How much have European AI chip startups raised compared with US ones?
Dealroom data reported by CNBC (17 Apr 2026) put European AI-chip startup funding at $800m in 2026 to mid-April, against $4.7bn for US startups, roughly 6 times as much.
What is the biggest European AI chip startup?
By disclosed funding in this tracker: Olix (London, about $532m across two 2026 rounds) and Axelera AI (Eindhoven, over $450m including grants and debt). Axelera is shipping: it reported its 500th customer by February 2026.
What happened to Graphcore?
The Bristol company was bought by SoftBank in 2024. A Companies House filing reported by CNBC shows SoftBank put in $457m in April 2026. It no longer raises outside venture money.
Which European AI chips can you buy today?
Axelera's Metis and Europa (Europa from 15 Sep 2026), Q.ANT's photonic processor (IONOS is the first commercial customer), and Innatera's Pulsar for edge sensors. SiPearl delivered first Rhea1 samples to Bull for the JUPITER supercomputer on 22 Sep 2026.