Northern Gritstone has led a 拢4.6m seed investment into Newcastle University spinout Literal Labs.
Literal Labs, led by ex-Arm executive Noel Hurley, is an AI algorithm company that uses logic-based techniques to generate custom AI models.
It marks Northern Gritstone鈥檚 first investment linked to Newcastle University.
Co-founded by Dr Alex Yakovlev and Dr Rishad Shafik, Literal Labs applies the Tsetlin machine approach to AI that is faster, explainable, and orders of magnitude more energy efficient than today鈥檚 neural networks.聽
Like neural networks, the Tsetlin machine can perform complex machine learning training. However, unlike neural networks, it is based on propositional logic rather than biology, which it says makes this more efficient in terms of computation, speeding up inferencing and less energy intensive.
Literal Labs claims to achieve inferencing 54x faster than classic techniques for machine learning applications, with 52x less energy consumption than equivalent neural networks.
The seed round was joined by Mercuri, Sure Valley Ventures, Cambridge Future Tech SPV and several angel investors.
鈥淟iteral Labs is Northern Gritstone鈥檚 first investment linked to Newcastle University, renowned for its technology-related research,鈥� said Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone.聽
鈥淲e are delighted to support Noel Hurley and the Literal Labs team at a time where innovation can truly benefit from greater efficiency in AI.鈥�
Hurley added: 鈥淲e鈥檙e at a pivotal moment for AI with adoption continuing to accelerate alongside sustainability and cost concerns. Our logic-based AI offers a new solution for those that want and need high-performing AI that is faster, more energy efficient and more explainable than what鈥檚 currently available via neural networks.聽
鈥淭his funding comes at a time when we鈥檙e ready to significantly speed up our product development and will enable us to bring our first product to market later this year.鈥�