Axelera AI: Democratising edge AI

Democratising edge AI

Axelera AI builds high-throughput, energy-efficient inference hardware for edge devices and enterprise compute. In February 2026 it closed a Series C of more than $250 million (€211 million) led by Innovation Industries, with BlackRock joining alongside the EIC Fund and Samsung Catalyst Fund.

It is the largest investment ever made in an EU AI semiconductor company and lifts total funding above $450 million. The round coincided with shipment to the company's 500th customer, having more than tripled its customer base in a year. Axelera also secured up to €61.6 million from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking to develop Titania, a scalable AI chiplet, and manufactures through TSMC and Samsung.

Our mandate

Zaz Ventures secured Axelera AI's blended EIC package at the point where its architecture was proven but its commercial record was not. We supported the EIC Accelerator Grant (€2.5 million) and EIC Accelerator Equity (€15 million), both received in 2024. The capital accelerated commercial scale-up of the Metis inference platform, completed software stack and SDK optimisation, and expanded deployment networks, establishing the customer traction that underwrote the €211 million Series C.