Valley invests in Bristol chip firm

A BRISTOL microchip maker has raised more than £38m from a Silicon Valley venture capital giant.

Graphcore, which designs computer processors suited for artificial intelligence, was handed the cash by Sequoia Capital. It follows previous fundraising rounds which brought in another £46m.

The firm’s chief executive Nigel Toon said Sequoia had been an early investment partner in many of the world’s most successful technology companies, including Apple, Oracle, Nvidia, Yahoo, Google, YouTube and PayPal.

He wrote in a blog: ‘Their track record of successful company building is stunning.’

Sequoia partner Matt Miller will join the Graphcore board of directors. He said: ‘Machine intelligence will cause an explosion of new applications and services that will transform every industry.’

The deal suggests British tech firms remain attractive to foreign investors, after Japanese business Softbank bought ARM Holdings for £24.3bn last year.