Oxford spinout Machine Discovery secures £4.5m of funding

By Giles Gwinnett

27 September 2023

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Left to right: Brett Larder, Machine Discovery co-founder and CTO, Muhammad Kasim, co-founder and CSO, Sam Vinko, co-founder, and Gianluca Gregori, co-founder - picture contributed

Oxford University spinout Machine Discovery has secured £4.5 million of funding to advance its artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the area of computer chip design.

The investment round was led by UK investor BGF and East Innovate, along with Foresight WAE Technology Funds, and UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), which is independently managed by Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Ltd, and Oxford Technology.

The company is an early-stage software company developing machine learning technology to simplify, automate and accelerate highly complex simulation tasks. By 2026, it says, the firm will cut the analog semiconductor product development cycle in half.

The funds will help its engineering and business development teams in the UK and the USA and drive commercial adoption of its technology across the semiconductor design space and in other markets.

"Machine Discovery is pioneering the use of machine learning to reduce product development cycles in a variety of sectors," said Bijan Kiani, the CEO at Machine Discovery.

"We thank our partners for their continued support at a key stage of the company’s development, enabling us to expand the number of users utilising our Discovery Platform and drive forward the company’s future innovations."

Luke Rajah, investor at BGF, added: "With cutting-edge machine learning technology and a management team with deep industry expertise, we believe Machine Discovery is poised for rapid adoption and growth.

"Early customer results in analog semiconductor design have shown the potential of the technology to massively accelerate the time to develop new products, which will enable leading semiconductor players to differentiate themselves in the market."

The company's co-founder and CSO Muhammad Kasim invented the machine learning technology, which underpins the company's work, while co-founder and CTO Brett Larder developed the first prototype of its Discovery Platform.

The company is led by CEO Kiani and non-executive chair Janet Collyer, who each have over 20 years of experience in the electronic design tools space.

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By Giles Gwinnett

Giles Gwinnett is a writer at The Business Magazine. He has been a journalist for more than 20 years and covered a vast array of topics at a range of media settings - in print and online. After his NCTJ newspaper training, he became a reporter in Hampshire before moving to a news agency in Gloucestershire. In recent years, he has been covering the financial markets along with company news for an investor-focused web portal. His many interests include politics, energy and the environment. He lives in Dorset.