CuspAI,AI-Powered Materials Revelation Startup,Secures $100 Million Series A
September 10,2025 – CuspAI,a startup leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate materials science,has raised $100 million in a Series A funding round,valuing the company at $520 million. The investment underscores the rapidly growing interest adn competition in applying AI to the discovery and development of new materials.
CuspAI’s technology utilizes foundation models to drastically reduce the time required to create materials with specific properties. According to the company, it can currently deliver a novel material meeting customer specifications within six months – a process traditionally taking a decade. CuspAI anticipates reducing this timeframe to one to two months within the next two years.
“At microsoft, we used to say what really matters in breakthroughs in AI is scale and speed. And I think this team has both,” saeid an unnamed investor, as quoted in Fortune.
A key differentiator for CuspAI is its “synthesis-aware generative AI models,” designed to produce materials that are realistically manufacturable, addressing a common challenge in previous AI-driven materials research. The company currently focuses on a dual strategy: creating materials to order for large partners and developing materials for its own projects, with a current emphasis on partner-specific projects.
“In the early days, we thought, ‘let’s be commercial and find partners with clear problems and a clear route to market,'” explained Edwards.
The funding round comes amidst increasing competition in the materials science AI space. In June 2024, CuspAI secured $30 million in seed funding, which was, at the time, the largest seed round for a materials science AI startup. However, since then, competitors like Lila Sciences (backed by Flagship Pioneering with a $200 million seed round) and Periodic Labs (which raised $200 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at $1 billion) have emerged, demonstrating the accelerating investment in the field.
