Venture Capital

Oxford-based Salience Labs has closed an oversubscribed $125 million Series B funding round to scale its photonic networking chips for AI data center infrastructure. The round was led by Bullhound Capital, whose principal Callum Stewart is joining the company's board. New and returning backers include AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading and the British Business Bank, along with existing shareholders Applied Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Silicon Catalyst Ventures.

SpaceX is in talks to raise 40 billion dollars — about 10 billion in bank loans and 30 billion in investment-grade debt — to buy Nvidia AI chips, the Financial Times reported on October 6, 2026, with Reuters and Bloomberg confirming the outlines the following day. Apollo Global Management is expected to lead the financing and place the debt with institutional investors, with bond fund Pimco among a small group of lenders in talks. If completed, the deal would close in 2027 and would rank among the largest debt financings ever tied to the AI buildout.

Sequoia Capital-backed chip startup Nuvacore is raising funds at a valuation of about $2.5 billion, sources told reporters on October 10, in the latest sign that investor appetite for AI hardware has fully returned after a decade of venture capital treating chips as too slow and too capital-intensive to bother with.