MCC

Apr 6, 2023

Toronto-based Agnostiq closed a $8.22 million CAD ($6.1 million USD) seed extension funding round to accelerate the development of its high performance computing (HPC) platform. The round was led by Differential Ventures, with additional investors including Scout Ventures, Tensility Venture Partners, Green Egg Ventures, and Rob Granieri, principal at Jane Street Capital and president at telecommunications construction company MC Communications. Agnostiq claims that major hardware and cloud providers are investing heavily in HPC systems to power the next generation of AI applications. Agnostiq CEO Oktay Goktas said the funds will be used to support the development and commercialisation of the commercial version of Covalent, Agnostiq’s open-source workflow orchestration platform. Covalent is designed to unify access to cloud and on-premise HPC resources, allowing enterprises to integrate new computing paradigms into their stack, including quantum computers and other specialized hardware. The platform, which reduces the cost and operational complexity of such integrations, is designed to support heterogeneous workflows cutting across clouds, on-premises clusters, and hardware paradigms. Agnostiq claims that major hardware and cloud providers are investing heavily in HPC systems to power the next generation of AI applications. According to Statista , HPC-based machine learning revenue worldwide will likely reach $1.57 billion USD in 2025, a 110 percent increase from $747 million in 2018. The rapid growth of HPC systems can be attributed to factors such as increasing demand, the adding of new data centres, and rapid improvement of existing systems. Major players in the HPC market include Lenovo, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, IBM, and Dell. Agnostiq was founded in 2019 by Elliot MacGowan, formerly of Bell Canada, and Goktas, a physicist by training. The startup previously raised $2.4 million CAD in seed funding in 2021. It has raised a total of $9.83 million CAD in funding to date. Featured image courtesy iStock.