US-based artificial intelligence chipmaker Mythic collected $30m yesterday in a series B1 round involving semiconductor supplier Lam Research, aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin, data storage technology provider Micron and telecommunications firm SoftBank.
The round, which brought Mythic’s overall series B funding to $70m, was led by investment firm Valor Equity Partners and also backed by Future Ventures, Atreides Capital, Lux Capital, Data Collective, AME Cloud Ventures and Threshold Ventures, an offshoot of venture capital firm DFJ.
SoftBank invested through its SoftBank Ventures Asia fund, while Micron and Lockheed Martin participated through their respective corporate venturing arms, Micron Ventures and Lockheed Martin Ventures.
Founded in 2012, Mythic produces computer chips and software tools that facilitate inference-based artificial intelligence (AI) – the ability to calculate new information from logic parameters and deep neural networks – for purposes including smart cities, autonomous vehicles, consumer electronics, connected factories and agriculture.
The company’s intelligence processing units (IPUs) calculate information using analogue currents and flash memory to enable AI applications to run at relatively low cost and energy usage. Mythic will begin distributing IPUs to select early-access clients in the fourth quarter of 2019.
SoftBank unit SoftBank Ventures led Mythic’s initial $40m series B round in March 2018, with contributions from Lockheed Martin Ventures, DFJ, Lux Capital, DCVC, AME Cloud Ventures and angel investor Andy Bechtolsheim, after a $9m DFJ-led series A the year before that featured Lux Capital, DCVC and AME Cloud Ventures.