This is My Homebase: The story of Fabrizio del Maffeo, Axelera AI
As Fabrizio Del Maffeo looks over his “empire” of chips, from the first to the latest, he holds up his latest: “This is the most powerful chip in Europe. It’s beautiful.” Axelera AI founder and CEO Fabrizio has never been shy about his ambitions for the five-year-old scale-up, which develops AI at the edge chips.
For Fabrizio, that beautiful chip represents something far greater than a feat of engineering. “We want to make an impact,” he says. “We want to put this technology in the hands of millions of developers so they can reinvent the world around us, from autonomous vehicles to medical devices to improving cropping yields in agriculture. There are so many applications.”
This kind of vision demands the right environment, and choosing High Tech Campus Eindhoven as Axelera’s homebase was a strategic decision from day one.
“It was obvious to me to start this company at High Tech Campus Eindhoven,” Fabrizio says. “This is the smartest square [kilometer] in Europe with hundreds of companies and thousands of talented engineers working here each day. The benefits of being here are huge.”
Being at HTCE provides invaluable opportunities for collaboration and growth. Axelera executives are a short walk from executives at tech companies, such as NXP, when they need to discuss collaborations and industry trends. Fabrizio believes this proximity is a crucial factor in Axelera’s explosive growth … with no signs of stopping.
Fabrizio predicted in 2021 the company would grow from 18 original employees to 185 by the end of 2024, and Axelera did. By early 2026, there are 270 Axelera employees at 19 locations across the globe, with a plan of adding 130 before the end of 2026.
But even Fabrizio has to be surprised at how the company dominated Europe’s semiconductor industry during the past 12 months. In February 2026, Axelera announced it had raised more than $250 million in its latest round of funding. Innovation Industries, based at HTCE, is the lead investor in the round but had previously invested in Axelera. Included in the syndication are Wall Street private equity giant BlackRock and Seoul-based Samsung Capital, which was already an investor.
Axelera’s total funding has reached more than $450 million since the company was founded less than five years ago. The largest investment ever in an EU-based AI semiconductor company comes as Axelera ships to its 500th global customer across physical AI and edge AI in industries including defense and public safety, industrial manufacturing, retail, agritech, robotics and security, firmly establishing the company as the global leader in power-efficient AI inference solutions.
In 2025, Fabrizio said Axelera AI had 100 customer using its chips. In just one year, the customer base has grown five times larger to 500 customers. Axelera leadership also announced it was expanding its ecosystem with six new partnerships spanning OEM integration, software development, value-added reselling and regional distribution. Those partners include Prodrive Technologies, AKO and Innowise.
New products include Europa, an AI processor unit (AIPU) for multi-user generative AI and computer vision applications, and Metis M2Max, which Axelera claims has the highest performance inference acceleration on the market.
“There’s no Plan B”
During a 2024 Lunch & Learn startup event at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, he famously said, “There is no Plan B.” It’s Fabrizio’s indomitable, entrepreneurial spirit that fuels this growth and puts him in an elite class of innovators based at High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
Fabrizio oversees his “empire” from offices at the AI Innovation Center. He’s frequently spotted wandering around on the phone, deep in conversation, or on the event stage. But where does he go to let off steam? He heads downstairs to his favorite restaurant on The Strip, Okinawa.
Okinawa serves fresh Japanese food, including Japanese curries, bento boxes, sushi and rice dishes. Maybe it’s the abundant light or the view of the lake that calms the soul. Maybe it’s the simple, nutritious food. Whatever it is, Fabrizio finds both energy and calm at Okinawa.
At Fabrizio’s homebase, he’s found the best of both worlds: a place to create and innovate and a place to take a breath … before heading back up to his empire.
It’s beautiful.
