Tenstorrent just closed its latest funding round, valuing the company at around $2.6 billion. The startup computing company aims to rival Nvidia with more affordable AI chips and processing. The nearly $700 million round attracted investors from Samsung, Bezos Expeditions, and LG Electronics.
Tenstorrent is a startup computing company that develops powerful AI hardware and software that competes with Nvidia. The latest funding round attracted big-name investors including Jeff Bezos and Samsung.
According to a statement from the company released on Monday, it raised $693 million in a Series D funding round, valuing the AI chip startup at about $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg. According to Tenstorrent’s announcement, Samsung Securities and Seoul-based venture capital investment firm AFW Partners led the round, with participation from Bezos Expeditions, LG Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group, and other investors.
“We’re excited about the breadth of investors who believe in our vision,” Tenstorrent COO Keith Witek said in a statement. “When we look at this group, we see a good balance of financial and strategic investors. We also have some high-profile individuals who are confident in our plans for AI. They respect our team, our technology, and our vision. They see the $150 million deal in a strong sign of commercial traction and opportunity in the market. ”
Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 by Ljubisa Bajic, Ivan Hamer, and Milos Trajkovic. In 2020, Jim Keller, a prolific microprocessor engineer known for his work at Apple and Tesla, joined the company as chief technology officer and became CEO in 2023. The company has 10 offices around the world, builds AI hardware and provides open source software. It is offered to chip builders and licenses the product to customers who want to design their own silicon.
Although Tenstorrent is still a fraction of the size of NVIDIA, it has improved semiconductor manufacturing by using an open source approach that relies on more common technologies and provides improved interoperability with other technology providers. The company aims to siphon off some of the giants’ huge market share, Bloomberg reported.
Tenstorrent advocates the use of an open standard instruction set architecture called RISC-V. Designed by computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, RISC-V defines how software controls the CPU in a computer and is available under a royalty-free open source license.
Instead, Nvidia’s approach focuses on what’s unique, from its chips to its specific data center layouts, allowing some of Nvidia’s customers to take advantage of competitors’ products without incurring significant costs. Switching to chips has become difficult.
“I used to work with proprietary technology, and it was really hard,” Keller told Bloomberg. “Open source helps build bigger platforms. Open source attracts engineers. And yes, this is a bit of a passion project.”
An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment. Representatives for Tenstorrent, Samsung and Bezos Expeditions did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
