Silicon Valley giant Sequoia Capital has invested $50m in a Bristol-based AI startup

Silicon Valley investment giant Sequoia Capital has pumped $50m (£38m) into Bristol-headquartered artificial intelligence chip producer Graphcore – a major vote of confidence in the UK's booming startup scene. Sequoia is best known as an early investor in some of the technology sectors' most prominent names – including Apple, Oracle, Yahoo, Google, YouTube, PayPal, Instagram, WhatsApp and Airbnb. Nigel Toon, chief executive officer of Graphcore, said that Sequoia was a suitable fit for his company because of its understanding of the importance of machine learning and how this will "reshape computing". "We're not obsessed with raising money, we're obsessed with who we work with – our customers, our team, our partners and our investors," Mr Toon said. The cash injection will help Graphcore, which was founded last year, to accelerate growth to meet the expected global demand for its machine-intelligence processor, the company said.