Dayton’s Niobium lands $5.5 million Seed Funding to commercialize FHE Accelerator Chip
Niobium, a leading custom silicon provider based in Dayton, has raised a $5.5 million seed round to revolutionize the field of Zero Trust Computing with its cryptography hardware.
Niobium’s flagship product is a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) hardware accelerator, which allows for computing on encrypted data, providing a mathematical guarantee of data privacy.
Niobium's fully integrated custom silicon for FHE is a PCIe card based on Niobium's FHE System on a Chip that can be inserted into any existing cloud server to accelerate the performance of FHE software solutions by up to four orders of magnitude. At the same time, the data is kept completely private and confidential. Pilots will start in Q4.
In announcing the seed raise, Niobium welcomed new board member Shane Wall, Fusion Fund partner and president of CXO Network.
You can visit niobiummicro.com to learn more.
What it Means to Ohio
Niobium has deep ties to Ohio, with Rev1 Ventures and Ohio Innovation Fund on the cap table. The funding was led by Fusion Fund. In addition to Rev1 and Ohio Innovation Fund, notable investors include Morgan Creek Capital and Hale Capital.
It’s also a significant startup investment into Ohio’s advanced manufacturing and deep tech space.
Niobium is headquartered in Dayton and has offices in Columbus, along with San Francisco and Portland, Oregon.
What They’re Saying
"Securing this financing validates the groundbreaking work we're doing at Niobium and propels us into the next critical phase of bringing our FHE accelerator chip to market. Our vision of redefining data privacy and security through advanced cryptography is now closer to reality. This investment enables us to fast-track the exploration of applications that require absolute data privacy, opening new possibilities for confidential computing across various industries. We are thankful to our investors for sharing our vision of a more secure and private digital future.”
- Kevin Yoder, president and CEO, Niobium
"I am thrilled to join the board of Niobium, a company that stands at the forefront of privacy technology with the world's first FHE accelerator chip. The potential of computing encrypted data without compromising an individual's privacy is immense, and Niobium is leading the charge in making this a practical reality for businesses worldwide. Fusion Fund is proud to support Niobium's journey towards commercializing their technology, which we believe will play a crucial role in shaping the future of secure computing.”
- Shane Wall, Niobium's Chairman and Fusion Fund partner
