Niobium Raises $23 Million for FHE Hardware Acceleration

Niobium, the Dayton, Ohio-based startup building a hardware accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), announced on 3 December 2025 that it has raised $23 million in an oversubscribed round, taking total funding to over $28 million. The company says its PCIe card accelerates FHE software to enable computing on encrypted data and supports all major FHE schemes, aiming to integrate quickly with existing server workflows.

Niobium notes its solution helps make zero-trust computing feasible by enabling high-performance encrypted data processing. The new funds will be used to accelerate the development of the second-generation FHE platforms, finalise production silicon architecture, and start building production application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for early deployments.

The round included new investors Blockchange Ventures, ADVentures, Korea Development Bank (KDB), JobsOhio Growth Capital, Rev1 Angels, and Silicon Catalyst Ventures, with existing backers Fusion Fund, Morgan Creek Capital, Rev1 Ventures, and Ohio Innovation Fund participating, according to SecurityWeek.