Graphcore Limited

The idea for Graphcore is born when Nigel Toon and Simon Knowles meet at the Marlborough Tavern, Bath, to discuss their next venture, after selling their previous semiconductor company.

The Graphcore project begins in stealth mode. A team is formed to build the first processor designed from the ground up for machine intelligence, based in Bristol, UK.

Graphcore is officially founded as a company, with its headquarters in Wine Street, Bristol, UK.

Graphcore raises $32m in Series A funding round, led by Bosch. Other strategic investors include Dell Technologies Capital and Samsung, as well as leading venture investors Amadeus Capital, C4 Ventures, Draper Esprit, Foundation Capital and Pitango.

Graphcore raises $30m in Series B funding round led by new investor, Atomico. AI luminaries including Demis Hassabis, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Pieter Abbeel, Scott Gray and Zoubin Ghahramani invest in the company.

One of the world's most prestigious VC firms, Sequoia Capital, invests $50m in a Series C funding round to support Graphcore in significant growth acceleration.

Graphcore begins to ship IPU products to early access customers and shows its C2 IPU Accelerator PCIe card for the first time in public at the ICML 2018 Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

Graphcore raises $200m in Series D funding round and becomes a unicorn, valued at $1.7bn. New investors include BMW, Microsoft, Chrysalis (formerly Merian) and Sofina.

IPU products are officially launched and first customers, including Microsoft, are announced. IPUs are available on Microsoft Azure and to buy from Dell.

Graphcore raises $150m in Series D2 funding round and is now valued at $1.95bn. New investors include Baillie Gifford, Mayfair Equity Partners and M&G Investments, with follow-on investment from existing investors including Merian Chrysalis.

Second generation IPU platform, the IPU-Machine M2000, is launched, powered by MK2 GC200 IPU processors and marking an 8x step up in performance.

Graphcore raises $222m in Series E funding round led by Ontario Teachers’ Pensions Plan Board and is now valued at $2.77bn. Investors include funds managed by Fidelity International and Schroders, and Baillie Gifford and Draper Esprit.