Insider Brief
- Niobium has raised over $23 million in oversubscribed follow-on funding to accelerate development of its second-generation fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) hardware platform.
- The investment supports Niobium’s transition from prototype to production-ready silicon, including ASIC development, software–hardware co-design, and customer pilot infrastructure.
- The round saw participation from both returning and new strategic investors, reflecting growing market confidence in FHE as a quantum-resilient privacy technology.
- Photo from Pexels by Jimmy Chan
PRESS RELEASE — Niobium, a leading custom silicon provider for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) platforms, today announced the close of a $23 million-plus oversubscribed follow-on investment to its seed round. The capital will accelerate the development of Niobium’s second-generation FHE platforms and support its transition from prototype to production-ready silicon suitable for customer pilots and early deployment.
Niobium’s FHE hardware accelerator enables computing on encrypted data, providing a mathematical guarantee of data privacy. The investment marks growing market conviction that FHE will play a foundational role in securing the data economy as AI, blockchain, and quantum computing reshape how organizations manage privacy and trust.
As data-intensive workloads proliferate, so do the risks associated with unencrypted processing. Simultaneously, the emergence of quantum computing poses a real threat to existing encryption standards. FHE offers quantum-resilient security, and Niobium’s FHE hardware acceleration platform represents a timely, essential solution for real-world deployment.
The round includes returning investors Fusion Fund, Morgan Creek Capital, Rev1 Ventures, and Ohio Innovation Fund. Approximately 70 percent of the new capital comes from first-time investors, including strategic investor Blockchange Ventures. Additional new investors include ADVentures, the new corporate venture arm of Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), which made its first investment in Niobium in this round, Korea Development Bank (KDB), JobsOhio Ventures, Rev1 Angels, and Silicon Catalyst Ventures.
“This financing is a vote of confidence not only in our progress, but in the market readiness for a new compute paradigm,” said Kevin Yoder, CEO of Niobium. “The rise of AI, quantum computing, and distributed computing has expanded possibilities and risks in the data economy. Niobium is building the hardware foundation for the encrypted future, where privacy is mathematically guaranteed.”
This funding accelerates development of Niobium’s second-generation FHE platform through continued hardware-software co-design, compiler optimization, and architecture refinement for breakthrough performance gains. The capital enables the company to finalize its production silicon architecture, begin development of a production ASIC, and continue to enhance customer-facing infrastructure for pilots and integration, while expanding ecosystem enablement. Niobium’s Early Access Program continues to gain traction with strategic partners across market segments. Niobium will deepen engagements with hyperscalers while continuing to explore markets such as blockchain and federated learning, positioning the company at the forefront of quantum-resilient computing infrastructure.
“There is no encryption standard more secure than fully homomorphic encryption (FHE),” said Matt Immerso, General Partner at Blockchange. “Niobium’s team is building a foundational chip for the future of cryptographic infrastructure. It could make FHE truly performant, secure, and scalable. Their rare combination of deep cryptography expertise and high-volume semiconductor manufacturing experience puts them closer to commercializing this technology than anyone has ever been.”
Kimberly Blakemore, who leads ADVentures and has joined Niobium as a board observer, noted that Niobium’s technology aligns with the growing demand for trustworthy AI infrastructure among enterprises.
“Imagining a world in which sensitive information stays locked away – yet computation could still be run on it as if it were open – is one that holds great promise for edge-to-cloud systems. Niobium is forging a path toward a privacy-first future with an FHE accelerator chip. ADVentures, the corporate venture capital fund of ADI, is proud to support Niobium as it works to commercialize their technology alongside Early Access Program customers to shape secure computing,” said Kimberly Blakemore, Head of ADVentures.
JobsOhio Ventures, a key regional partner, emphasized Niobium’s role in strengthening America’s semiconductor innovation ecosystem.
“Niobium exemplifies the kind of tech leadership we’re proud to support in Ohio,” said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. “We’re entering a new generation of AI, technology and manufacturing opportunities, and the investments we’re already making in these industries are setting the stage for innovation, collaboration and discovery to happen rapidly across our state.”
