The archive · AI & Models · Technical decision · 2023–2026
PhysicsX's bet: AI predicts physics up to 1Mx faster; $32M Series A to $2.4B in 3 years
London startup founded by F1 R&D veterans replaces slow engineering simulation with AI that predicts physics up to a million times faster; $2.4B by June 2026.
PhysicsX
What the business is
AI-native engineering software that runs physics simulations in seconds, sold to aerospace, automotive, semiconductor, energy and materials manufacturers.
Starting capital：$32M Series A (Nov 2023), first outside funding, led by General Catalyst with Standard Investments, NGP, Radius Capital and Henry Kravis
How it started
PhysicsX was founded in 2023 in London by Robin Tuluie, former head of R&D at Renault (Alpine) F1 and chief scientist at Mercedes F1, and Jacomo Corbo, founder of McKinsey's QuantumBlack and a former F1 chief race strategist. Their thesis: traditional simulation (CFD/FEA) takes hours to days per design, capping how many variants engineers can test. The company emerged from stealth on 27 Nov 2023 with a $32M Series A led by General Catalyst and a team of about 50 scientists, claiming its AI models predict physical behavior 10,000 to a million times faster than conventional simulation software.
What happened
Between 2023 and 2025 PhysicsX embedded its platform with aerospace, defense, automotive, semiconductor, energy and materials customers. In June 2025 it raised a $135M Series B led by Atomico with Temasek, Siemens, Applied Materials and July Fund, bringing total funding to nearly $170M; the team grew past 150 and revenue more than quadrupled in two years. In June 2026 it raised an oversubscribed $300M Series C led by Temasek — joined by M&G Investments and Intrepid Growth Partners and existing backers including NVIDIA and Siemens — at a valuation of roughly $2.4B, with revenue doubled year over year, booked revenue tripled and customer count more than doubled.
How it ended up
Still scaling: by June 2026 PhysicsX had more than 300 employees, offices in London, New York, the Bay Area and Singapore, and was spending the new capital on 'Large Physics Models' — larger pre-trained physics AI models — while expanding across industrial sectors.
Background
PhysicsX is a London-based startup founded in 2023 by Robin Tuluie, who led R&D at Renault (Alpine) and Mercedes Formula 1 teams, and Jacomo Corbo, founder of McKinsey's QuantumBlack and a former F1 chief race strategist. Their bet: the simulation tools at the heart of hardware engineering — computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis — are so slow that they cap how many designs an engineer can test, and AI models that predict physics can break that bottleneck.
PhysicsX emerged from stealth in November 2023 with a $32M Series A led by General Catalyst and about 50 scientists, claiming predictions 10,000 to a million times faster than traditional simulation. Two years later it had more than quadrupled revenue, grown past 150 people, and raised a $135M Series B led by Atomico with Temasek, Siemens and Applied Materials. In June 2026 an oversubscribed $300M Series C led by Temasek valued the company at about $2.4B, with revenue doubled year over year and customers more than doubled.
The platform is deployed in aerospace and defense, automotive, semiconductors, industrial machinery, energy and materials, helping teams evaluate thousands of design variants where they once managed a handful. PhysicsX is now building 'Large Physics Models' and expanding from London and New York into the Bay Area and Singapore, betting that physics AI becomes the default engineering software stack.
What has to be true
- Simulation time is the binding constraint in hardware R&D; a 10,000–1,000,000x speedup changes what engineers can explore, not just how fast they work.
- F1 pedigree gave the founders instant credibility and reference customers in the most demanding engineering environments.
- The market was proven but fragmented: incumbent simulation tools were decades old, and geometric deep learning had just crossed the feasibility threshold for physics prediction.
- Strategic investors (Siemens, Applied Materials, NVIDIA) supply both capital and the manufacturing relationships needed to deploy industrial AI.
- Sequential doubling — revenue, bookings, customers, headcount — convinced Temasek to lead a $300M round just 12 months after its first check.
What can be applied
An orders-of-magnitude speedup in an incumbent tool can create a new category: attack the slowest step in a critical workflow and start where the founders have insider credibility.
Aftermath
As of September 2026 PhysicsX is still private and scaling: a $2.4B valuation from the June 2026 Series C, more than 300 employees, offices in London, New York, the Bay Area and Singapore, and a platform deployed across aerospace, automotive, semiconductors, energy and materials. It says revenue doubled and customer count more than doubled in the year to June 2026, and it is spending the new capital on larger pre-trained physics AI models and global expansion. There is no disclosed exit or IPO plan.
Sources
- PhysicsX emerges from stealth with $32M for AI to power engineering simulations
- PhysicsX Raises $135M Series B to Usher in a New Era of AI-Native Engineering and Manufacturing
- PhysicsX Announces $300M Series C to Accelerate Physics AI for Industrial Engineering
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