Profile

Axelera AI is a hardware and software company that optimizes for inference acceleration. They have built a revolutionary approach through Digital In-memory compute and Risc-V technology that brings high performance and energy efficiency to every segment of compute, without costly adoption. Through a technology platform that scales across use cases, Axelera AI supports multiple industries, from healthcare to industrial automation, from retail to security.

Today, Axelera AI ships the Metis AIPU, an inference accelerator optimized for edge computing, and the Voyager SDK, which simplifies adoption and optimizes the data pipeline. Their roadmap is expanding from edge to data center, but always centers on their D-IMC technology. Founded in 2021, Axelera AI is a mature and efficient organization, having taped out 3 chips in just 3 years, scaled their expertise to over 220 professionals, and raised ~$200 million in equity and grants. They are solving real-world problems and unlocking future possibilities.

Visit https://axelera.ai/.

Key Products

Metis AIPU: An inference accelerator for the edge that is highly optimized and efficient to deliver world-class performance, energy efficiency and at a fraction of the cost.

Voyager SDK: a software platform that allows developers easy access to AI acceleration by automatically optimizing and quantizing trained models across an entire system (CPU + Metis). 

Customer Insights

• Aetina press & demo


• Seco press & demo


• Kudelski press


• Arduino demo, booth, social


• Thales broadcast

Key Executives

Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO and Co-Founder

Fabrizio Del Maffeo is the CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI, the Netherlands-based startup delivering the world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the Edge. In his role at Axelera AI, Fabrizio leads a world-class executive team, board of directors and advisors from top AI Fortune 500 companies.

Before establishing Axelera AI, Fabrizio Del Maffeo served as Head of AI at the Bitfury Group, a globally recognized emerging technologies company. Prior to joining Bitfury, Fabrizio was Vice President and Managing Director of AAEON Technology Europe, the AI and internet of things (IoT) computing company within the ASUS Group.

Evangelos Eleftheriou, CTO and Co-Founder

Evangelos Eleftheriou, an IEEE and IBM Fellow, is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Axelera AI, a best-in-class performance company that develops a game-changing hardware and software platform for AI.

As a CTO, Evangelos oversees the development and dissemination of technology for external customers, vendors, and other clients to help improve and increase Axelera AI’s business.

Before his current role, Evangelos worked for IBM Research – Zurich, where he held various management positions for over 35 years. His outstanding achievements led him to become an IBM Fellow, which is IBM’s highest technical honour.

In 2002, Evangelos became a Fellow of the IEEE, and later in 2003, he was co-recipient of the IEEE ComS Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award. He was also co-recipient of the 2005 Technology Award of the Eduard Rhein Foundation. In 2005, he was appointed an IBM Fellow and inducted into the IBM Academy of Technology. In 2009, he was co-recipient of the IEEE Control Systems Technology Award and the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award. In 2016, Evangelos received an honoris causa professorship from the University of Patras, Greece. In 2018, he was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering as Foreign Member. Evangelos has authored or coauthored over 250 publications and holds over 160 patents (granted and pending applications).

His primary interests lie in AI and machine learning, including emerging computing paradigms such as neuromorphic and in-memory computing.

Evangelos holds a PhD and a Master of Eng. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Carleton University, Canada, and a BSc in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece.

Alexis Crowell, Chief Marketing Officer

Alexis joined Axelera AI in October 2024 as the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer. She has the pleasure of leading the global marketing and communications team that spans multiple continents.

Prior to joining Axelera AI, Alexis was vice president and CTO of Asia Pacific and Japan for Intel Corporation where she and her team were responsible for successful deployments of computing technology across a variety of use cases and industries.

Throughout her 20+ year career, Alexis had the opportunity to live and work on four continents, gaining experience across multiple disciplines, including software engineering in cloud and client technologies, AI and deep learning frameworks, edge computing, and product marketing. This broad experience has shaped her into a leader focused on innovation, problem-solving, and delivering results.

Jon Ferguson, Vice President, Silicon Engineering

Jonathan Ferguson is a silicon engineering leader with 25 years of experience across the entire silicon design process, specializing in Logical Design and Design-for-Test (DFT). As VP of Silicon Engineering at Axelera AI since October 2022, he oversees the company’s silicon development efforts.

Prior to Axelera AI, Jonathan spent over six years at Graphcore in leadership roles, including Silicon Engineering Director (Logical) and Front-End Design Manager. Before that, he held key positions at XMOS for nearly nine years, where he drove chip microarchitecture, silicon technology advancements, and high-speed logic design. Earlier in his career, he contributed to DSP and processor IP design at Broadcom and ARC International.

Jonathan holds a BEng First Class from Lancaster University. His career spans numerous successful tapeouts on CMOS technologies from 0.35um to 5nm, and his work has resulted in multiple patents in parallel arithmetic operations, processor decode operations, and configurable instruction set architectures.

Manuel Botija, Vice President, Product Management

Manuel and his team are responsible for the product management of the Axelera AI suite of solutions. He is an engineer with degrees from Telecom Paris and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Over the past 17 years, he has led product innovation in semiconductor startups across Silicon Valley and Europe. Before joining Axelera, Manuel served as Head of Product at GrAI Matter Labs, which was acquired by Snap Inc.

Ioannis Koltsidas, Vice President, AI Software

Ioannis Koltsidas is a software engineering leader with 18 years of experience in Research & Development. As VP of AI Software, he oversees the development and delivery of Axelera AI’s software stack and cloud services. Ioannis joined Axelera AI as a founding engineer.

Prior to his current role, he served as Technical Lead at Google and as Research Staff at IBM Research where he developed technologies for Data Storage and Analytics. Ioannis holds a Diploma of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh. He has co-authored more than 20 scientific publications and 40 patents in the areas of data management, storage and analytics.

Meghna Singh, Vice President, People

Meghna is a strategic human resource (HR) leader with 15+ years of experience across the full spectrum of people functions, including talent strategy, leadership development, and executive recruitment. As VP of People at Axelera AI, she drives global people strategy, fostering a high-performance culture and scalable talent framework to support the company’s rapid expansion.

She spent 7+ years at McKinsey & Company in multiple people leadership roles, including leading professional development for the Life Sciences practice and later for the Digital practice in Europe. Her experience also includes executive recruiting, talent acquisition, and workforce planning. Prior to McKinsey, she held key HR and recruiting roles at Booking.com and Infosys.

Meghna holds an MBA in Human Resources Development from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Physics from Delhi University.

Investors

$68 Million raised in Series B Funding | Axelera AI

Competitors

• Hailo


• Nvidia


• SiMa