Vertical Compute Secures €20 Million Seed Round to Revolutionize Integrated Memory and Computing Technology

Vertical Compute, led by CEO Sylvain Dubois (previously with Google) and CTO Sebastien Couet (ex-imec), has successfully raised €20 million in a seed investment round. This funding, primarily from imec.xpand, features other notable investors like Eurazeo, XAnge, and Vector Gestion. With this backing, Vertical Compute aims to create cutting-edge memory and compute technology to enhance AI applications.

Their technology promises to be revolutionary. By reducing data movement, it can save up to 80% more energy, deliver personalized AI solutions, and keep user data private by minimizing remote transfers.

As AI and large language models evolve, industries are changing rapidly. However, these advanced models often rely on complex cloud systems, which can come with data lag, high energy costs, and privacy concerns. Edge computing might help, but running large models on devices like smartphones or PCs faces challenges in cost, power, and scalability.

A significant hurdle is the ‘memory wall.’ On one hand, Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) is fast but limited in size and expensive. On the other, Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM) is larger but consumes a lot of energy. With the demand for quick access to data growing, especially for AI tasks, addressing this memory wall is essential for better AI performance.

To tackle this issue, Vertical Compute is developing chiplet-based solutions that utilize a new way to store bits vertically. This innovative method, conceived by Sebastien Couet, integrates vertical data lanes with computation units. It shows promise for outperforming DRAM in density and energy efficiency by shortening data distances.

Based in Louvain-La-Neuve (Belgium), with R&D centers in Leuven, Grenoble, and Nice, Vertical Compute is actively seeking talented engineers to help drive its ambitious goals forward.

Sylvain Dubois brings over 25 years of experience in computing and memory, having explored memory bottlenecks during his time at Google. Meanwhile, CTO Sebastien Couet, with his extensive background at imec, has deep insights into the future of memory technologies.

KEY QUOTES:

“Memory technologies face limitations in both density and performance scaling, while processor performance continues to surge. The extreme data access requirements of AI workloads exacerbate this challenge, making it imperative to overcome the memory wall to enable the next wave of AI innovations. We believe going Vertical is the path to 100X gains”

Sébastien Couet, CTO of Vertical Compute

“The surge in data-intensive applications like generative AI demands a drastic new approach to transferring data between computing cores and memory units. Our solution is designed to overcome the fundamental scaling limitations of memory technologies by going vertical. We are committed to unlocking the full potential of large language models on the edge without any compromise”

“We want to recruit the very best from all over Europe, and finally put Europe at the forefront in terms of tech”

Sylvain Dubois, CEO of Vertical Compute

“This seed investment round highlights the confidence in the leadership team’s capabilities and the disruptive potential of this game-changing technology. We could not be more excited to collaborate with Sylvain, Sebastien and their team and to help them to achieve their ambitious goals”

Tom Vanhoutte from imec.xpand

“We are confident that, with the ongoing support of our teams and ecosystem, Vertical Compute can become a disruptor in the semiconductor industry. The strong international investor base shows that we are not alone in this belief.”