James Dacombe

The officer register of Companies House, the United Kingdom’s registrar of companies, gives his full name as James Robert Dacombe, his date of birth as September 2000 and his nationality as British.⁠[1]

He grew up in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, in the north of England.⁠[2][3][4]

Taavet HinrikusTaavet HinrikusTaavet Hinrikus is an entrepreneur and investor who was Skype’s first employee, co-founded the cross-border payments company TransferWise (now Wise) in 2010, and co-founded the early-stage venture capital firm Plural in 2022.Open the full entry, a partner at Plural, writes that he started programming at 13; VnExpress International writes that he taught himself programming at 13 by building websites and apps, Fortune that he began programming apps and websites at 13, and BusinessCloud that he taught himself to code.⁠[5][6][2][7][3]

BusinessCloud’s profile states that he attended Ashville College in Harrogate from 2012 to 2017; Fortune describes it as a private school.⁠[3][7]

BusinessCloud writes that after Ashville College he went on to St Aidan’s and St John Fisher’s Associated Sixth Form, taking A-levels in physics, maths, economics and business; his LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry profile notes under this entry “Dropped out after 2 days.” VnExpress International gives 2017 as the year he enrolled.⁠[3][2]

Octopus Investments’ portfolio page states that he left school at 16 and is self-taught; Fortune writes that he dropped out of high school at 17 to scale CoMind; the Forbes article published in translation by Forbes Brasil writes that he left high school in 2017 to found CoMind.⁠[8][7][9]

Julia Hawkins, a general partner at LocalGlobe, recalls in an article on the Phoenix Court website that the investors first met him when he was 17, introduced by Meri Beckwith and Matt CliffordMatt CliffordMatt Clifford is a British entrepreneur who co-founded the talent investor Entrepreneur First (EF) in 2011 and serves as its non-executive chair. He was founding chair of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and the Prime Minister’s adviser on AI, and leads international affairs at Anthropic.Open the full entry; he had just left school in Yorkshire and was preparing to move to San Francisco, and the investors persuaded him to build in London instead.⁠[10][11]

Julia Hawkins writes that a family tragedy sparked his obsession with understanding the brain; Taavet Hinrikus writes that strokes, mental health problems and Alzheimer’s among his family and close friends led him to ask “why we understand so little about the brain.”⁠[10][5]

BusinessCloud, Entrepreneurs First and DLA Piper all date the founding of CoMind to 2018, while Fortune gives 2017. As to his age when he founded the company, Plural, UKTN and Tech.eu write 17, and Entrepreneurs First writes “then 18-year-old.”⁠[3][12][13][7][5][14][11]

Companies House records show that he has been a director of COMIND TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED (company number 11729526) since December 17, 2018.⁠[1]

Julia Hawkins writes that his original goal was a brain-computer interface. Octopus Investments’ page describes CoMind as developing a next-generation non-invasive brain-computer interface, with a near-term use in biomarker work for drug discovery through neural imaging at very high temporal and spatial resolution and a longer-term use in consumer devices for gaming, augmented reality and virtual reality.⁠[10][8]

BusinessCloud writes that Entrepreneurs First, one of his investors, spoke of his “insane determination” and “unstoppable” drive to get his products into US hospitals while he was still a teenager, and that Tim Sadler, co-founder and chief executive of the cybersecurity company Tessian, called him “one of the most important and inspiring founders I’ve met.”⁠[3]

The Phoenix Court article states that LocalGlobe led CoMind’s first funding round and has invested in every round since, most recently through Latitude; one passage of the article dates the first round to 2018 and another to 2019.⁠[10]

BusinessCloud writes that Krishna Visvanathan, co-founder and partner at Crane Venture Partners, first met him in 2019 and co-invested in CoMind’s pre-seed round, which Julia Hawkins led; Krishna Visvanathan wrote on LinkedIn that he was “destined to be an entrepreneur of substance.”⁠[3]

Octopus Investments’ page lists him and Christina Franzeskides as the co-founders of CoMind and states that Christina Franzeskides has a background in finance, having worked in corporate finance and venture capital roles before joining Entrepreneurs First, where she met him and the two joined forces to co-found CoMind. Companies House records show that Christina Franzeskides was appointed a director of COMIND TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED on May 16, 2019 and resigned on December 15, 2021.⁠[8][1]

Companies House records show that Simon Paul King was appointed a director of COMIND TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED on April 1, 2021 and resigned on September 30, 2025.⁠[1]

Octopus Investments’ page lists CoMind’s funding stage as “Seed +” and describes him as the driving force behind the company who, at 19, was building CoMind’s vision and hiring scientists and engineers; the page quotes partner Simon King as saying that the founders have assembled a highly skilled technical team from leading laboratories around the world. In her 2025 article Julia Hawkins thanks “Simon at Octopus.”⁠[8][10]

On January 6, 2022 the Thiel Foundation announced its new class of 23 Thiel Fellows, and he was among them. The list reads “James Dacombe: 21, London, UK,” and the project description says that CoMind is developing non-invasive neuroimaging tools to detect a range of signals and create a seamless interface to the brain. The announcement states that each fellow of the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry receives $100,000 over two years, together with mentorship from the foundation’s network of technology founders, investors and scientists.⁠[15][15]

MedTech Dive writes that in 2022 he received $100,000 from the program, which Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry set up, and that at 21 he had already founded CoMind and begun developing non-invasive neuroimaging tools; DLA Piper’s release likewise states that he received a $100,000 grant. BusinessCloud and Fortune, in describing the program, give the amount as $250,000; VnExpress International writes that the program offered $100,000 at the time and later raised the amount to $250,000 for new participants.⁠[16][13][3][7][2]

Startupbusiness writes that Angelini Ventures co-led CoMind’s 2023 funding round with Octopus VenturesOctopus VenturesOctopus Ventures is a London-based venture capital investor and part of Octopus Investments, a business of Octopus Group. It invests mainly from pre-seed to Series A across B2B software, bio, climate, consumer, deep tech, fintech and health.Open the full entry.⁠[6]

Companies House records show that Elia Stupka on January 15, 2024, Frank M Fischer on April 18, 2024 and Julia Filippa Hawkins on December 11, 2024 were appointed directors of COMIND TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED, and that Elia Stupka resigned on July 31, 2025. Startupbusiness describes Elia Stupka as the managing director who led the investment for Angelini Ventures, and Frank Fischer as CoMind’s chair, a medical device veteran and president of NeuroPace.⁠[1][6]

Fortune writes that in 2024 he said to The Sunday Times: “An advantage of starting my business so young was naivety.” He added: “You don’t have the scar tissues from what hasn’t worked, so you just try a lot of things. Fortunately, some of them work.”⁠[7]

Jon Peddie Research writes that Flux Computing was originally registered by him as Flux Corp Ltd in March 2024; Creandum’s portfolio page lists 2024 as the year OLIX was founded.⁠[17][18]

Kristian Branaes and David Helgason of Transition Ventures write that Transition Ventures was among the first institutional investors in OLIX, in 2024.⁠[19]

The Forbes article published in translation by Forbes Brasil writes that he had never worked in the chip industry before OLIX, and suggests that his work with photonics at CoMind could give OLIX an edge.⁠[9]

VnExpress International writes that he founded the company, initially named Flux, through Bletchley Industries, which also owns CoMind; ThePrint writes that Bletchley Industries is the holding company he set up in 2025 and through which he owns his stake in OLIX.⁠[2][4]

On October 20, 2025 CoMind announced that it had raised $102.5 million in total, including a $60 million Series A led by Plural; the existing investors taking part were Angelini Ventures, LocalGlobe, Octopus Ventures, Crane, Backed VC and Entrepreneurs First. Entrepreneurs First’s quarterly update also lists Latitude among the investors.⁠[11][16][14][12]

Accounts differ on the amount and the timing: UKTN gives the round as $60 million (£45 million); BusinessCloud gives the 102.5 million in pounds (“£102.5m”); and the Fortune and Forbes Brasil articles date the $102.5 million raise to August 2025.⁠[14][3][7][9]

Taavet Hinrikus joined CoMind’s board with the round; Companies House records him as a director of COMIND TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED from July 31, 2025. In his article setting out the reasons for the investment he writes that James Dacombe, then 25, had built a working product and taken it through two clinical research studies; the leadership team the article lists consists of chief medical officer Marc Bloom, who has 40 years of experience in neuroanesthesiology and came out of retirement for CoMind, chief commercial officer Chema Garcia-Soto, chief scientific officer Rob Cooper, a professor of biomedical optics at University College LondonUniversity College LondonUniversity College London (UCL) is a university in London, England, United Kingdom. Founded in 1826, it is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry (associate professor in the Phoenix Court article), and vice president of clinical Xavier Lefebvre, who oversaw hundreds of clinical trials at MedtronicMedtronicMedtronic plc is a healthcare technology company founded in Minneapolis in 1949 that acquired Covidien in 2015.Open the full entry, while board member Mike Tarnoff (registered at Companies House as Michael Tarnoff, appointed a director on March 19, 2025) was formerly chief executive and surgeon-in-chief of Tufts Medical Center and chief medical officer of Medtronic.⁠[14][5][10][1]

Julia Hawkins writes that after early conversations with customers and exploration of photonics he pivoted from the brain-computer interface to CoMind One, a device that uses low-power laser light to measure cerebral blood flow, brain pressure, cerebral autoregulation and other parameters continuously and without surgery. She writes that “James is a generational Founder”; Tech.eu quotes her as saying “James is truly a generational founder.”⁠[10][11]

MedTech Dive writes that CoMind’s device uses a small adhesive sensor placed on the forehead to capture the light reflected as a laser passes through the brain, and that the company likens its technology to the lidar used in self-driving cars; the article was later corrected to say that the device cannot measure brain oxygenation. Startupbusiness, for its part, writes that CoMind One can also detect brain oxygenation, brain metabolism and other parameters.⁠[16][6]

DLA Piper’s release states that CoMind has completed clinical trials on surgical patients under general anesthetic in Barcelona and, for traumatic brain injuries, at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, that the company published two research papers in 2025, and that it is recruiting in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry for a third clinical trial intended to support an application for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). MedTech Dive writes that the company is enrolling patients in an early feasibility trial (ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT06368648) and has said to the Financial TimesFinancial TimesThe Financial Times (FT) is a London-based English-language business and financial news organization, known for its salmon-pink newspaper and its motto “Without Fear and Without Favour.” It was owned successively by the British Pearson group and Japan’s Nikkei Inc., and today digital subscriptions are its main source of revenue.Open the full entry that it aims to start selling the device in 2027.⁠[13][16]

The funds are to be used to advance regulatory approval of CoMind One in the United States, complete further clinical trials, expand the team and set up manufacturing partnerships. Tech.eu writes that the company aims to obtain FDA approval within two years; Plural’s article states that CoMind also plans to develop an artificial intelligence platform called CoVision that turns sensor data into predictive insights.⁠[20][6][11][5]

In DLA Piper’s release he says: “The brain is the most important organ in the body and yet it’s the least monitored at the patient bedside.” He adds: “Our vision is to make this form of brain monitoring as common as having your blood pressure taken.” The release states that CoMind’s transaction team was led by him and chief financial officer Kevin Walsh.⁠[13]

Startupbusiness quotes him as saying: “The brain is our most important organ, but monitoring the brains of hospitalised patients is totally inadequate and archaic.”⁠[6]

Jon Peddie Research writes that on January 19, 2026 the company changed its name to Olix Computing Ltd. (written OLIX Computing Ltd. by SiliconANGLE).⁠[17][21]

SiliconANGLE wrote on February 11, 2026 that OLIX had raised $220 million in a round led by the Belgian venture capital firm Hummingbird VenturesHummingbird VenturesHummingbird Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by Barend Van den Brande and based in London and Antwerp, Belgium, that invests in “outlier” founders without limiting itself to particular sectors or regions; its early investments include Peak Games, Kraken, Deliveroo, BillionToOne, and Lovable.Open the full entry, valuing the company at more than $1 billion; it had earlier raised an undisclosed amount from Plural, Vertex Ventures, LocalGlobe and Entrepreneurs First. BusinessCloud calls it one of the largest Series A rounds ever raised by a UK technology company.⁠[21][22]

Taavet Hinrikus published an article the same day setting out Plural’s investment, in which the round is given as $250 million; Jon Peddie Research and Transition Ventures write instead that OLIX has raised $250 million in total, of which the latest round was $220 million.⁠[23][17][19]

The processor OLIX is developing is called the Optical Tensor Processing Unit (OTPU) and is aimed at AI inference; the company says its design combines SRAM with photonics and does without high-bandwidth memory (HBM), advanced packaging or leading-edge silicon. Jon Peddie Research wrote in February 2026 that OLIX hoped to deliver its first products to customers as soon as the following year.⁠[21][23][17]

Taavet Hinrikus writes that OLIX is headquartered in London, was founded less than two years earlier, has shown that its core technology works and can be manufactured, and has grown from its founding team to more than 70 people, with a target of more than 200 within the year; the company requires employees to live within 45 minutes of the office, and 85% live within 20 minutes; at the three-month mark, every team member who is performing well is offered a significant financial package to leave if they do not buy into the culture or the company. The company was then recruiting in London, Austin, Toronto, Bristol and San Francisco.⁠[23]

Taavet Hinrikus calls him a “relentless founder” who takes contrarian bets and attracts exceptional talent. Jon Peddie Research quotes Jonathan Heiliger, a general partner at Vertex Ventures, as saying that “James and team are executing faster than companies with 10 times their resources.” The same article states that OLIX and CoMind are separate companies and that CoMind receives none of the money raised by OLIX.⁠[23][17]

On August 3, 2026 OLIX closed a $312 million Series B that valued the company at $3.3 billion (about £2.5 billion), more than three times its valuation six months earlier. The round was led by the New York investment firm Fundomo, and the investors included Arm, Hudson River TradingHudson River TradingHudson River Trading is a proprietary trading firm headquartered at 3 World Trade Center in New York. Through its broker-dealer HRT Financial LP it trades for its own account and makes markets in US equities, options and futures, and it also handles part of the customer order flow of the retail broker Robinhood.Open the full entry, NetflixNetflixNetflix is a U.S. entertainment company that offers streaming series, films, games, and live programming, headquartered in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997, it grew from online DVD rental into an international subscription entertainment service and also runs original content, advertising, and in-person experience businesses.Open the full entry co-founder Reed HastingsReed HastingsReed Hastings is an entrepreneur who co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997 and led it as CEO for more than 25 years before serving as executive chairman from 2023 to 2026. Since 2025 he has been a director of Anthropic.Open the full entry and the UK government’s Sovereign AI fund; existing investors increased their commitments.⁠[4][22][24][2]

BusinessCloud’s profile of August 4, 2026 states that he was then 25 and that, besides leading OLIX, he remained founder and chief executive of CoMind.⁠[3]

Nick McKeown, professor emeritus at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry, joined OLIX’s board, and Matt Briers, who was chief financial officer of Wise for nine years, was appointed chief financial officer.⁠[22][24]

BusinessCloud quotes him as saying: “Olix’s mission is to build the infrastructure for frontier AI.” Rather than forcing one chip to do everything, he said, OLIX builds specialised silicon and an optical network to connect it, spreading models across racks like an assembly line.⁠[22]

Eastern Eye writes that OLIX’s first product is called the DX-1, that the company plans to deliver its first AI chip to customers in the second half of 2027, and that the company claims its optical interconnect can link up to 10,000 chips across multiple server racks; the company has more than 140 people in London, Bristol and the United States. ThePrint writes that the employees are spread across the UK, the United States and Canada and that the company plans to finalise its designs within the year, begin production the following year and deliver complete systems by late 2027.⁠[24][4]

Eastern Eye writes that he said to the Financial Times that OLIX focuses on specialised chips for different AI workloads and is on track to be among the fastest companies in the sector to go from founding to producing its first chip design; the UK’s AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, said that countries developing advanced semiconductor technology will shape the future of AI and that OLIX is the kind of UK company the government wants to support.⁠[24]

Joséphine Kant, head of ventures at Sovereign AI, called him “one of the most important founders of his generation” and said: “James not only wants to win globally, but he’s also proud of where he’s from.”⁠[2]

VnExpress International writes that, by an analysis of Companies House filings, he held 38.6% of OLIX through Bletchley Industries before the round, and that his holding after the round has not been disclosed; ThePrint attributes the 38.6% figure to The Times. ThePrint writes that ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry estimates his current stake in OLIX at about 30%; the Forbes article published in translation by Forbes Brasil gives his stake in OLIX as an estimated 30% and his stake in CoMind as 12%, and Fortune and ThePrint give the same 12% for CoMind.⁠[2][4][7][9]

Creandum’s portfolio page lists 2026 as the year it backed OLIX and names Peter Specht as its lead on the investment.⁠[18]

CoMind: Official website: https://www.comind.io/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12][8]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

OLIX: Official website: https://olix.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[26][18]

LinkedIn: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdacombe/ (opens in a new window).⁠[26][19]