Jeff Bezos is investing in Cambridge-based CuspAI as part of a $400mn funding round that values the AI materials science company at $2.6bn, according to the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter.
The deal would make CuspAI Europe's latest clean tech unicorn – a milestone Impact Loop predicted earlier this year.
Bezos Expeditions, the Amazon founder's family office, is among the investors alongside Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. The deal has not yet closed, according to the FT.
CuspAI uses generative AI to accelerate materials discovery, compressing a process that typically takes years into months.
Customers include chip equipment maker ASML, Meta, and Hyundai.
Finnish chemicals group Kemira said last month it had used CuspAI's platform to narrow 300 trillion potential material structures to 20 candidates for removing toxic PFAS compounds from drinking water.
The company was co-founded by Chad Edwards and Max Welling, a machine learning professor at the University of Amsterdam. Its advisers include AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, and former BP chief Lord John Browne.
CuspAI has previously raised more than $220mn from investors including Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek and venture firm NEA.
Bezos's investment is believed to be in a personal capacity, the FT reported, separate from his role as co-CEO of Prometheus – his own AI engineering start-up, which has raised $12bn.