Articul8, an enterprise AI company spun out of Intel in early 2024, has raised more than half of a planned $70 million funding round at a $500 million pre-money valuation, according to its CEO. The company is aiming to capitalize on rising demand for AI solutions in highly regulated industries.
The Series B round is being raised in two tranches, with the first led by Spain-based Adara Ventures, founder and CEO Arun K. Subramaniyan said in an interview. He declined to share the exact size of the initial tranche but noted that Articul8 expects to complete the full round in the first quarter of this year.
The new valuation represents a roughly fivefold increase from Articul8’s $100 million post-money Series A valuation in January 2024. Since that round, the Santa Clara–based company has exceeded $90 million in total contract value across 29 paying customers. Its client list includes Hitachi Energy, AWS, Franklin Templeton, and Intel.
Subramaniyan said the company was not actively seeking capital out of necessity, describing Articul8 as revenue-positive following several large enterprise deals.
“We are not cash-strapped,” he said.
He added that Articul8 expects to end the year with annual recurring revenue slightly above $57 million, with approximately 45% to 50% of that already booked.
Articul8 focuses on building purpose-built AI systems that run within customers’ existing IT environments, rather than relying on shared, general-purpose models. Instead of offering standalone AI models, the company delivers its technology as software applications and AI agents designed for specific business functions. Its primary focus is on regulated sectors — including energy, manufacturing, aerospace, financial services, and semiconductors — where precision, auditability, and data governance are essential.
“Our competition is essentially everyone,” Subramaniyan said. “But right now, our main competitors are the cloud service providers, because they’ve realized that their general-purpose offerings have largely become commodities.”
He explained that Articul8’s emphasis on specialized AI systems resonates with customers who require consistent outcomes and transparent audit trails — requirements that are more difficult to meet with general-purpose models running on shared cloud infrastructure.
Articul8 plans to allocate most of the Series B funding toward expanding its research and product development efforts, as well as scaling its international operations, with a particular focus on Europe and parts of Asia.
Subramaniyan said Adara Ventures’ involvement will accelerate the company’s European expansion, noting that the Madrid-based firm’s energy fund is backed by the European Investment Fund. Articul8 is also targeting growth in markets such as Japan and South Korea, where it has already started working with large enterprise customers.
India-based Aditya Birla Ventures is also participating in the current funding round, Subramaniyan added.
The company collaborates with major technology players including Nvidia and Google Cloud, and Subramaniyan noted that Amazon Web Services serves both as a customer and a partner on certain deployments.
Articul8 currently has 75 employees, with roughly 80% dedicated to research and development. Its teams are distributed across the United States, Brazil, and India.