James Dacombe, a 25-year-old from Harrogate who left school at 16, has become Europe’s youngest self-made billionaire after his AI chip startup Olix tripled in value. The company, formerly known as Flux Computing, reached a $3.3 billion valuation following a $312 million Series B funding round, according to a report from Crypto Briefing. Dacombe’s personal fortune crossed the ten-figure threshold thanks to his estimated 30% stake in Olix, which alone is worth roughly $990 million. Combined with his 12% holding in CoMind, a neurotechnology firm he also founded, his net worth now comfortably exceeds $1 billion. CoMind, which focuses on non-invasive brain monitoring, raised $102.5 million in August 2025. Olix was originally founded as Flux Computing in March 2024 and rebranded in January 2026. The startup’s valuation stood at about $1 billion in February 2026, meaning it tripled in just six months. The company’s core product is the Optical Tensor Processing Unit (OTPU), a photonic chip designed for AI inference workloads. Unlike traditional silicon-based processors that use electricity, the OTPU uses light to process data, potentially enabling faster performance and lower energy consumption. The technology has attracted a notable roster of investors, including Fundomo, Arm, Hudson River Trading, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and the UK government’s Sovereign AI fund. The involvement of Arm—whose chip designs power nearly every smartphone on Earth—adds credibility to Olix’s ambitions. The startup is positioning itself as a potential alternative to Nvidia’s dominant GPU architecture, which has faced supply constraints and high-bandwidth memory shortages. Olix is not alone in challenging Nvidia’s grip on the AI hardware market. Companies like Cerebras and Groq, as well as custom silicon efforts from hyperscalers such as Google and Amazon, have all aimed to chip away at Nvidia’s moat. However, the UK government’s participation through its Sovereign AI fund gives Olix a distinct geopolitical dimension, making it a rare homegrown contender in a hardware sector dominated by American and Asian players. Dacombe’s journey from high school dropout to billionaire mirrors the path of other tech founders who benefited from the Thiel Fellowship. He received the fellowship in 2022, which provides $100,000 to young entrepreneurs to skip college and build companies. Notable alumni include Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, and Austin Russell, founder of Luminar Technologies. With Olix’s valuation surging and CoMind also gaining traction, Dacombe has established himself as a significant figure in both AI hardware and neurotechnology. The combined funding across his two companies now exceeds $700 million, underscoring investor confidence in his vision. As the demand for AI processing power continues to grow, Olix’s photonic approach could become a key player in the next wave of computing infrastructure.