Tell us about your start up
In a world where modern enterprises face increasingly rapid data growth and high real-time requirements Xelera’s software platform enables the easy deployment of accelerator technologies, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to address these challenges. Big Data algorithms in data centres, clouds and edge clouds are accelerated to run up to 100 times faster as well as far more energy efficient. The guaranteed low latency enables completely new approaches to many application areas…

Tell us about your start up
In a world where modern enterprises face increasingly rapid data growth and high real-time requirements Xelera’s software platform enables the easy deployment of accelerator technologies, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to address these challenges.

Big Data algorithms in data centres, clouds and edge clouds are accelerated to run up to 100 times faster as well as far more energy efficient. The guaranteed low latency enables completely new approaches to many application areas, such as cyber security, fintech and virtualized RAN.

Customers are network and cloud solution providers, telecommunication network integrators and high-frequency trading companies all over the globe but with focus on Europe and the US. Currently operational customer deployments are in Germany, Switzerland and China.

What is your USP, how do you stand out from your competition?
Programming hardware accelerators is a whole different world from traditional programming and only very few areas, such as artificial intelligence, have frameworks that make them easily accessible to users. For everything else highly specialized software engineers are required. Xelera has both, extensive experience in hardware acceleration and common software engineering. That’s why the company can offer easy-to-use solutions, often requiring zero code-change, to massively accelerate processes.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Xelera has close ties to telecommunication operators and suppliers due to past and current projects. Xelera acts as sub-supplier in the sector, offering high-performance software components for 5G Open RAN.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
Xelera started as a university spin-off financed by a government grant from the EXIST program in Germany. After establishing itself on the market as acceleration company it received a seed funding from the hardware accelerator producer and strategic investor Xilinx which allowed Xelera to significantly grow in size. Besides funding, Xelera is also engaged in business activities with Xilinx/AMD such as joint marketing and product offerings.

Why did you establish the business?
Two of the four founders have a strong FPGA (type of hardware accelerator) background. When Intel acquired Altera, one of the two big FPGA producers, in 2015, and announced the introduction of FPGAs into datacentres on a large scale, that was the perfect time to get into the market. There was little competition but lots of emerging demand for hardware acceleration in datacentres and clouds.

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Who are your mentors?
Our mentors are Prof. Andreas Koch from the TU Darmstadt and Prof. George Constantinides from the Imperial College London. Both are luminaries in the field of hardware acceleration and helped and inspired us to start this venture.

What does the future hold for your business?
With the upcoming 5G technology a new business opportunity emerges that plays a lot into Xelera’s strengths. Virtualized Open Radio Access Networks (Open RAN) has drastically increased bandwidth requirements that are only possible to process using hardware acceleration. Furthermore, Xelera has already developed a lot of the required technology during previous projects and product development. That’s why Xelera sees itself as one of the suppliers of core component for 5G in the not-so-distant future.

HEADQUARTERS: Darmstadt, Germany
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 10 full-time employees
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Seed funding by VC
WEBSITE URL: https://www.xelera.io/
FOUNDERS
> Felix Winterstein
> Andreas Duffner
> Andrea Suardi 
> Alexander Lange 

You can meet Xelera in the startup zone at Connected Germany, 5-6 April 2022, Mainz Congress – Germany. Find out more HERE