May 7, 2024 at 12:03PM
Niobium raised $5.5 million in seed funding for its hardware accelerator focused on zero trust computing. The company’s technology, based on fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), aims to process encrypted data without access to actual data. Niobium’s SoC-based PCIe card significantly accelerates FHE software solutions and plans to target various industries with the investment.
From the meeting notes, it is clear that Niobium, a company focused on developing a hardware accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), has successfully raised $5.5 million in a seed funding round. The funding was led by Fusion Fund, with participation from Morgan Creek Capital, Rev1 Ventures, Ohio Innovation Fund, and Hale Capital.
The company plans to use the investment to develop commercial applications for FHE acceleration in industries such as healthcare, pharmaceutical research, financial fraud detection, blockchain public ledgers, and digital advertising. Additionally, Niobium aims to increase its headcount, expand existing IP protection, and optimize its hardware.
Niobium’s hardware accelerator, designed to enhance zero trust computing, claims to be significantly faster than FHE on a typical CPU. The company has developed a PCIe card based on its System-on-a-Chip (SoC) that can be inserted into any existing cloud server. Niobium plans to open its early access program in late Q2 2024, with pilots expected to begin in the fourth quarter.
The company’s president and CEO, Kevin Yoder, expressed confidence in the groundbreaking work being done at Niobium, highlighting the potential to redefine data privacy and security through advanced cryptography. Yoder emphasized that the investment will enable Niobium to explore new applications that require absolute data privacy, opening possibilities for confidential computing across various industries.
As an executive assistant, the key takeaways from the meeting notes are the successful seed funding round, the planned use of the investment, the technical advancements being made by Niobium, and the company’s strategic vision for the future.