The company will continue to operate under its current name despite becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary following the acquisition.
Global law firm Orrick has advised Bristol-headquartered semiconductor company Graphcore on its acquisition by Japanese multinational investment holding company SoftBank Group Corp.
The Orrick advisory team was headed by partners James Connor and Chris Grew and included members of the firm’s artificial intelligence and machine learning, M&A, technology companies, and technology transactions practices. Orrick has provided legal counsel to Graphcore since its 2016 incorporation, including on several fundraising rounds.
Graphcore is a UK company that specialises in developing processors for AI and machine learning applications. It has additional UK offices in Cambridge and London, as well as in Gdansk, Poland, and Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Under the terms of the transaction, Graphcore will become a wholly-owned SoftBank subsidiary operating under its own name. The acquisition will facilitate the development of Graphcore’s AI compute system, which has been in progress for more than a year, in addition to supporting the company’s work on next generation semi-conductors and AI technology.
Of the transaction, Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon said: “This is a tremendous endorsement of our team and their ability to build truly transformative AI technologies at scale, as well as a great outcome for our company. Demand for AI compute is vast and continues to grow. There remains much to do to improve efficiency, resilience, and computational power to unlock the full potential of AI. In SoftBank, we have a partner that can enable the Graphcore team to redefine the landscape for AI technology.”
SoftBank Investment Advisers managing partner Vikas J. Parekh added: “Society is embracing the opportunities offered by foundation models, generative AI applications and new approaches to scientific discovery. Next generation semi-conductors and compute systems are essential in the AGI journey, we’re pleased to collaborate with Graphcore in this mission.”
