Investors rescue analog AI pioneer Mythic
US analog AI pioneer Mythic has been saved from collapse in a $13m funding round with a key European investor, Hermann Hauser.
The company, which had raised $178m, ran out of cash in November last year, cutting staff and restructuring. The latest round includes Catapult Ventures (in the US) and Germany-based Hermann Hauser Investment, led by Hermann Hauser, one of the founders of Acorn Computers who also runs Amadeus Capital Partners. Mythic’s existing investors Atreides Management, DCVC, and Lux Capital also contributed to the round.
The funding sees Dave Fick, who co-founded the company and previously served as CTO, take over as CEO. He replaces Mike Henry who left in January.
The investment will help Mythic bring to market its next-generation M2000 series product, which builds on the legacy of Mythic’s M1076 Analog Matrix Processor (Mythic AMP). The M1076, which is already shipping to high-profile customers like Lockheed Martin, was the industry’s first to achieve 33ms latency on full HD high-accuracy object detectors like YOLOv5, while running in a cost and power envelope suitable for edge systems.
The company plans to further grow its headcount in 2024 as the M2000 series nears production.
The analog compute-in-memory (CIM) architecture that uses high-density analog memory to store neural networks completely on-chip. The integrated RISC-V processing cores from German developer Codasip provide the same level of performance as a desktop GPU with a dramatically lower power consumption for embedded edge AI inferencing. The low power allowed the M1076 to be used in a reference design on a UAV for image processing.
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This is seeing the company pivoting to focus on defense applications on the back of the Lockeed Martin deal alongside the enterprise, industrial, smart city and smart home markets where it is set to compete with Hailo’s AI vision processor.
“At Lockheed Martin Ventures we want to take smart risks by investing in advanced computing capabilities that our customers can adopt and expand to outpace complex threats within a rapidly evolving landscape,” said Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures. “As geopolitical tensions continue to rise, it is imperative that we continue to work with our customers in identifying their needs and supporting companies that can scale technologies that keep the US and its allies in front of those threats.”
“Mythic’s technology is truly one of a kind with our analog computing approach that offers huge leaps in performance and efficiency compared to digital processors, not to mention substantial cost benefits. This new funding will help us accelerate our path forward to help companies to unlock the full potential of edge AI inferencing,” said Fick.
“Mythic has already seen strong demand for the M1076, so we’re confident that our next-generation processor will be widely adopted in computer vision applications like smart robots, security cameras, drones, and AR headsets. The potential for analog computing is truly limitless.”
“Despite being prevalent in our daily lives, the vast majority of AI workloads still run on expensive, power hungry processors in the cloud,” said Rouz Jazayeri, managing director of Catapult Ventures. “The future of AI applications will run on the edge and will require high performance, low latency, and low cost compute all in a low power footprint. Mythic’s Analog Matrix Processor is strongly positioned to lead this transition and help unlock a whole new set of Edge AI applications thanks to their world class power and cost efficient architecture.”
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