Normal Computing raises $50M led by Samsung Catalyst for AI silicon

Normal Computing announced it raised $50 million in a round led by Samsung Catalyst Fund. The funding brings the total raised by the company to more than $85 million. New investors in the round are Galvanize, Brevan Howard Macro Venture Fund and ArcTern Ventures. Prior investors that also participated are Celesta Capital, Drive Capital, Eric Schmidt's First Spark Ventures and Micron Ventures. The company builds AI tools for the semiconductor industry. It is developing a new class of computing hardware and uses its software to design its own hardware IP. Normal is partnered with more than half of the top ten semiconductor companies by revenue. The funding advances AI-native semiconductor design and physics-based computing architectures. It targets greater intelligence per dollar and per watt. Chief Executive Faris Sbahi said datacenters are expected to hit an energy wall around 2030. He said meeting growing demands requires a novel architecture and unification in design methodology. Normal EDA is designed to accelerate custom silicon to market by 2x today and to enable 1000x gains in efficiency over time. Dede Goldschmidt, SVP and managing director and head of Samsung Catalyst Fund, said Normal has assembled a strong team with broad experience across AI and semiconductors. The platform they have built has the potential to offer faster time to market for the most demanding chip design customers in the ecosystem.