It's easy to focus on the software and robotic aspects of artificial intelligence.
But a lot of AI's potential stems from the chips that compute all that data. That's where Mythic, an Austin-based AI chip and software company, is hoping to play a big role.
The startup announced Tuesday that it has closed a $40 million Series B. The investment was led by SoftBank Ventures, the venture fund from Japan's SoftBank. Lockheed Martin Ventures was also listed as a new investor, alongside Sun Microsystems co-founder and early Google investor Andy Bechtolsheim. Existing investors DFJ, Lux Capital, Data Collective and AME Cloud Ventures also invested in the round. The company has now raised $56 million to date.
Mythic, initially formed at the integrated circuits lab at the University of Michigan in 2012, was founded by Mike Henry and Dave Fick. The company is now based out of Austin and Redwood City, California, which is in the Bay Area. Part of this funding will be used to find new chip talent. The ABJ reported that Mythic will likely hire 55 employees this year -- about half in Austin and the other half in Redwood City.
The company is making an analog processor-in-memory type chip, which does computations inside memory cells. And that's useful when dealing with piles of data from autonomous cars, drones, phones and many other future applications. It plans to start shipping its first chips by the end of 2018 and go forward with full-scale production in 2019.
"The world will be very different 10 years from now," Henry said in a news release. "And Mythic will play a major role in the machines, devices, and electronics that make that difference. We are excited to have SoftBank join as an investor. They are committed to building the future vision of AI, robotics, autonomous, and machines that can see and interact with the world. We fill a missing piece in their vision: incredibly powerful compute at the edge that is cost-efficient and low power enough to run on batteries."
