Neural Concepts : As pressure from Chinese competitors mounts and the EV market stagnates, major U.S. and European automakers are racing to cut the cost of producing electric vehicles so they can reach the price tags and profit margins of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.
Neural Concepts, a company spun out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), has raised $27 million in a Series B funding round to use AI to solve this problem.
The company says it uses deep learning in 3D environments and combines data analysis with machine learning, speeding up development time by up to 75% and accelerating product simulations by up to 10 times
Pierre Baque, co-founder and CEO of Neural Concepts, said the platform makes the current manual process go much faster. “Let’s say I have a design for a battery, and I want it to perform better to increase its thermal efficiency. Our software will suggest some improvements to make it more efficient, because the software is aware of the characteristics of the materials,” he explained.
“Before our software, you typically had a CAD designer create a 3D design and then send it to someone to do a very complex numerical simulation. This could take a very long time to run or require physical testing. But now our platform can guide the designer directly.”
BaQ believes its platform can reduce electric vehicle development time from four years to 18 months.
The startup’s product is currently being used by Airbus, Bosch, General Electric, Mubia, Subaru and four Formula 1 racing teams. The company is working with Nvidia to optimize the graphics card maker’s GPU and CUDA software.
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The Series B was led by Forestay Capital, with participation from new investor DE Shaw Group, as well as existing participating investors Alven, Constantia New Business, HTGF, and Aster Group. The round follows a $9 million Series A in March 2022 and a $2 million seed round in 2020. The new money will be used for hiring and expansion in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the US
“Neural Concepts has pioneered 3D deep learning — a cutting edge aspect of AI — and has demonstrated unprecedented progress and results with clients across a variety of industries around the world,” Deborah Pittet, senior principal at Forestay Capital, said in a statement.