VyperCore Announces £4 million in Seed Funding

Published
April 19, 2023
by
Russell Haggar

VyperCore, a processor startup delivering a new paradigm in data centre compute performance and security, today announces its seed funding round with the backing of the UK’s leading early-stage hardtech investors.

VyperCore has raised £4m from Octopus Ventures, Foresight WAE Technology, Science Creates Ventures, BGF and Silicon Roundabout Ventures.  This will be used to open design centres in Cambridge, UK and Bristol, UK, and to develop its first generation of accelerated compute silicon.  VyperCore is hiring.

VyperCore’s technology accelerates existing high performance general purpose compute workloads by a factor of up to 10x, without modifying the original code.  It also securely blocks out the highest risk technical cyber attack vectors at gate-level within the processor.

VyperCore’s ground-breaking memory management technology moves away from the processor’s traditional view of its memory as being a single linear space.  By defining an object-based view of the memory from within the core of the processor, substantial optimisations in execution of existing code can be achieved, while blocking memory-oriented cybersecurity attack vectors such as memory leaks and buffer overflows.

Ed Nutting, VyperCore’s CTO and co-founder, said:

“Moore’s Law stalled for general-purpose compute several years ago, and processor architectures stopped evolving to meet the needs of modern programming languages such as Python and C#.  VyperCore releases processors to perform optimally for the current generation of languages without compromising their power, flexibility or compatibility.”

Russell Haggar, VyperCore’s executive chairman and co-founder, added:

“VyperCore’s proprietary memory management technology can be integrated into all leading processor architectures.  Its ability to accelerate existing complex workloads in the data centre delivers huge cost and energy savings in the data centre, without any rewriting of existing code bases.  We’re delighted to be working with the UK’s leading hardtech investors to deliver breakthrough cost/performance benchmarks using VyperCore’s paradigm-setting processor technology.”

VyperCore’s first generation hardware will be based on the RISC-V architecture and will sample with partners in its Early Access Program in Q3 2024.

Rubina Singh, Principal at Octopus Ventures, commented:

“We are delighted to be backing this innovative deeptech technology developed by Ed and his colleagues.  We were particularly excited about VyperCore’s potential to both significantly improve performance and optimise energy consumption for processors.  The UK has been at the heart of processor semiconductor innovation for decades, and VyperCore is the latest startup to leverage its world-leading strengths in this field.”

Anastasia Sagaidachna, Investment Manager at Foresight, noted:

“VyperCore promises to revolutionise the way data centres run complex compute workloads, achieving breakthrough cost/performance benchmarks.  We are excited to be supporting Ed and Russell as they bring VyperCore’s paradigm-setting processor technology to market.”

Julian Peck, Investment Manager at WAE Technologies, added:

“We believe the team at VyperCore have a disruptive technology that will revolutionise memory management and, in doing so, transform data centre compute performance.  We look forward to working with the team to support their technology development plans.”

Notes to editors

About VyperCore

VyperCore was founded in 2022 by Ed Nutting and Russell Haggar, building upon research into acceleration of general-purpose CPU architectures undertaken at the University of Bristol.  VyperCore’s technology aims to accelerate existing compute workloads by x10, without re-writing the application code.  It also delivers industry-leading cybersecurity integrity.  VyperCore’s first generation hardware will be available for evaluation in H2 2024, with server-ready data centre hardware following on from there.

Contact: pr@vypercore.com

Visit https://vypercore.com


About Octopus Ventures

For the people and ideas that will change the world, because we believe you can build a better tomorrow by investing in it.

We can back you at every stage of your journey, from ideas on a page through to IPO. Each year we deploy more than £200 million across seven areas where we see maximum potential for impact: B2B software, bio, climate, consumer, deep tech, fintech, health. With many years of experience and expertise investing in each of these areas, our team can help our portfolio companies scale at speed.

For us, investment is about more than money. Being truly invested is about giving time, energy and focus; working with founders to give them the best chance of success. It means a shared commitment to solving the big problems that matter.

We’ve backed the likes of ManyPets, Cazoo, Depop, Elvie and WaveOptics, while others have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses.

We are based in London and New York with a network of partners across the U.S and Asia.

Visit https://octopusventures.com


About Foresight WAE Technology (FWT)

Foresight and WAE Technologies started their investment collaboration in 2016 with the launch of the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund.  2019 saw the launch of a sister fund, the Foresight Williams Technology VCT share class, which sits within the Foresight Solar & Technology VCT plc.  These two funds target investment in companies developing innovative and transformational technologies and where we believe Foresight’s and WAE’s expertise and services can be harnessed to assist with the development of the businesses, with the objective of achieving successful exits at high-value multiples.

Visit https://fwt.foresight.group