OLIX

OLIX (formerly Flux) is a London-based AI chip company founded in 2024 that builds optical compute infrastructure for frontier AI inference. It designs chips, lasers and interconnects so each stage of token generation can run on specialised hardware rather than the same general-purpose GPU. Its X-1 platform unrolls models across many chips with a slow-and-wide optical interconnect and a deterministic compiler; DX-1 is the first decode accelerator, holding models in on-chip SRAM without advanced packaging or HBM. In August 2026 OLIX raised a €270.5 million ($312 million) Series B at a €2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) valuation, with Fundomo, Arm and Hudson River Trading joining alongside angels including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, while existing investors increased commitments. Professor Nick McKeown joined the board and former Wise executive Matt Briers became CFO. Proceeds fund DX-1 delivery to first customers by H2 2027 and manufacturing scale-up, with hiring in London, Bristol, Austin, Toronto and San Francisco. Sources: EU-Startups 3 Aug 2026; olix.com.