SambaNova raises $1 billion at $11 billion valuation

Investing.com -- AI chip startup SambaNova raised $1 billion in a Series F funding round led by General Atlantic at an $11 billion post-money valuation, the company announced Wednesday.

The funding round included participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates and Capital Group. Additional investors included A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Intel Capital and the Qatar Investment Authority.

SambaNova produces custom chips, hardware systems and cloud services designed for inference, which is the process by which AI models respond to user queries.

The company plans to use the funds to expand capacity, scale deployments globally and continue investing in chips, systems, software and full-stack AI infrastructure for customers.

SambaNova also announced that JPMorgan Chase selected it as an inference infrastructure partner, deploying its SN40 and SN50 systems for AI inference.

In February, SambaNova raised $350 million to fund expansion of its SN50 AI chip and formed a partnership with Intel to deliver inference solutions for AI-native companies. The partnership included a $35 million Intel investment in SambaNova, which received U.S. antitrust clearance in May after acquisition talks between the companies ended.

In April, corporate records showed Intel had planned to invest another $15 million in SambaNova, which would increase Intel's ownership to 9%. SambaNova did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Intel's current stake size and its contribution to the Series F round.

In April 2021, SambaNova raised $676 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Group's Vision Fund 2 at a valuation exceeding $5 billion.

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