London-based AI startup PhysicsX has closed a $300m funding round led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, lifting its valuation to $2.4bn. The PhysicsX $300m funding round more than doubles the company’s previous valuation, achieved in less than a year.
PhysicsX was founded in 2019 by former Formula 1 engineers Jacomo Corbo and Robin Tuluie. The company builds AI tools to help manufacturers design and optimise products, from engine components and drones through to industrial equipment. Its growth has been rapid: headcount has expanded from 150 to 350 employees over the past year alone.
What the PhysicsX $300m Funding Round Follows
According to StartupHub.ai, this raise follows a Series B round approximately 12 months ago, making the valuation doubling all the more pointed. The new round is categorised as a Series C, and the pace of capital accumulation places PhysicsX in a bracket occupied by relatively few European AI companies at this stage.
The company recently placed second in the inaugural Sifted AI 100, a ranking of the most promising AI startups in Europe, and its new valuation puts it among the UK’s most valuable AI startups, behind companies such as ElevenLabs and Ineffable Intelligence.
Data Centres, Semiconductors and a Supply-Side Problem
The funding comes as industrial demand for AI-adjacent hardware accelerates. PhysicsX says its technology is being used to improve the design and performance of critical hardware across industrial supply chains, with particular momentum linked to the infrastructure supporting the global AI boom.
CEO Corbo told the Financial Times that the business is, right now, ‘very supply-side limited’, adding that PhysicsX is having to moderate its rollout to existing customers because of the strength of incoming demand. That is an unusual position for a company at this stage: the bottleneck is not finding customers, it is serving them.
Corbo pointed to sectors tied to data-centre construction (including gas turbines, compressors and cooling systems) as major growth opportunities. He also said that semiconductors are expected to become PhysicsX’s largest industry segment this year. Both observations suggest the company sees its near-term growth tied closely to the physical infrastructure underpinning AI expansion, rather than to AI software customers directly.
Which raises an obvious question: as data-centre build cycles eventually slow or plateau, does PhysicsX’s addressable market narrow, or does the installed-base maintenance and optimisation work that follows construction provide a durable second wave of demand? Corbo has not framed it that way publicly, but it is the kind of question investors will ask as the company scales.
US Expansion and a London HQ That Isn’t Going Anywhere
The fresh capital will fund further expansion in the United States and support the establishment of a new office in Singapore. The Singapore connection makes sense given Temasek’s lead on the round: anchoring a presence close to your largest backer is straightforward logic.
Despite the international push, Corbo was clear that the company would remain headquartered in London, describing the city as a ‘wonderful place’ to build a global business. For a company founded by engineers with deep roots in European motorsport and precision manufacturing, that commitment to London is consistent with where PhysicsX draws its talent and institutional identity.
The broader picture is of a company that has moved from niche engineering tool to infrastructure-critical platform in a short window. A headcount that has grown from 150 to 350 in a single year, a valuation that has more than doubled across consecutive funding rounds, and a CEO describing demand as outpacing the company’s ability to respond, those are the characteristics of a business experiencing genuine pull, not manufactured momentum.
Whether PhysicsX can build out its capacity fast enough to meet that demand without compromising the quality of its technology is the operational challenge the $300m is intended to solve.
