Olix押注光子推理芯片取代GPU：流片前估值33亿美元，融资3.12亿

做的是什么生意

Olix designs AI inference chips: its X-1 platform unrolls models across custom chips linked by optical interconnects that move data with light instead of copper, starting with the DX-1 decode accelerator built on fast on-chip SRAM rather than HBM or advanced packaging.

启动资金：$312M Series B at a $3.3B valuation announced August 2026 (Fundomo, Arm, Hudson River Trading, Reed Hastings and existing backers), following a $220M round in February 2026 at just over $1B.

起因

James Dacombe dropped out of school at 16, founded neurotech company CoMind at 17 - which has raised about $100M and still lists him as CEO - and launched Olix, initially called Flux, in London in 2024 at age 23. His argument, as he told the Financial Times: 'The era of a single Nvidia chip handling every AI task was over.' AI workloads were becoming too demanding and varied for one general-purpose processor, and inference - generating model responses - was where compute cost would concentrate.

经过

Olix attracted a deep backer list early - Hummingbird Ventures, Crane, Plural, Creandum, Phoenix Court and Transition - and raised $220M in February 2026 at just over a $1B valuation. In early August 2026 it closed a $312M Series B at $3.3B, roughly tripling its valuation in six months; Fundomo led, Arm, Hudson River Trading and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings joined, and the UK government's Sovereign AI venture fund backed the company. Olix hired former Wise CFO Matt Briers, appointed Professor Nick McKeown to its board, and grew past 140 employees across London, Bristol, Toronto and Austin.

结果

Still pre-revenue as of 2026-09-02: no chip has shipped - Olix plans to finish its tape-out later in 2026 and deliver the DX-1 to launch customers in the second half of 2027.

可借鉴之处

当投资者能够为瓶颈定价时，在出货前融资是可行的：Olix推销的是一个结构性论点——推理需求增长而GPU和HBM供应受限——而非一个演示。