AI chip startup Positron's valuation skyrockets in latest funding round

Sept 10 (Reuters) - Positron AI, ‌a startup ​developing ​chips to run AI models, said on Thursday it has raised $875 million in its latest funding round, more ‌than quadrupling its valuation in seven months to $5 billion.

The ⁠startup had raised $230 million in February at a valuation of $1.06 billion, according to ‌data provider PitchBook.

Here are ‌some details:

• The rapidly growing AI inference market, focused on running trained AI models, has become a key battleground as ​companies develop specialized processors to challenge Nvidia's dominance.

• The financing was split into two tranches: a $375 million Series C at ⁠a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation and a Series C-1 of up to $500 million led by ​NEA and Jim Clark, Positron said.

• Proceeds will fund the final design stage of Asimov, the company's next-generation chip. ​The company targets production in the ‌second half of 2027.

• The company said its AI inference system, Titan, will combine four to ⁠eight Asimov chips to serve models exceeding 16 trillion parameters and context windows beyond 10 million tokens in a single node.

• The round ⁠was co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, SemiAnalysis Capital ​and Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics. Qatar Investment Authority, Cisco Investments and Naver Ventures were among additional investors.

• Positron also said it is deploying ‌more than 50 racks of Atlas, its first-generation inference system, at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

• As part ‌of the financing, Forest Baskett of NEA, Gavin Baker of Atreides ⁠Management, Dylan Patel, the ‌founder of SemiAnalysis, and ​Thomas Jermoluk from Jim Clark Office will join Positron's board.

(Reporting by Prathik Jayaprakash in Bengaluru; Editing by ‌Sahal Muhammed)

---

Serious News for Serious Traders! Try StreetInsider.com Premium Free!

---

You May Also Be Interested In

• Yemen's Houthis reach strategic island at mouth of vital shipping lane
• South Africa extradites to US six suspected members of Black Axe gang
• Exclusive-UAE revises AI data center plan after Iranian attacks, sources say