SambaNova Systems Secures $1 Billion at $11 Billion Valuation
AI chip company SambaNova Systems has made a significant milestone by raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation led by General Atlantic, in a first close of its Series F round. The investment round, which is still open to additional investors, marks a substantial boost for the company, which has been rapidly growing its presence in the AI chip market.
According to an interview with TechCrunch, SambaNova’s CEO and co-founder, Rodrigo Liang, stated that the company expects a few more investors to join the round in the coming weeks, with the second close likely to be completed soon. This latest round comes roughly five months after the Palo Alto, California-based startup company unveiled its SN50 chip, alongside a $350 million Series E in February.
SambaNova had also been in acquisition talks with Intel, a deal valuing it at roughly $1.6 billion, according to a December report from Bloomberg News. However, Liang remained noncommittal about the company’s future, stating that they keep fielding interest and the door is open to an exit in the dynamic AI market. The momentum and growth are likely to drive the company toward going public at some point, Liang added.
The company’s ties to Intel have deepened, with the two collaborating on a multi-year partnership to support AI inference development based on Intel’s Xeon chip. The partnership has led to the co-development of products and their joint marketing efforts. Liang highlighted the benefits of this partnership, stating that it gives SambaNova a great relationship with Intel, allowing them to leverage the scale of Intel with the technology they have.
In addition to its partnership with Intel, SambaNova has been selected by JPMorganChase as an ‘inference-infrastructure partner.’ The bank has chosen SambaNova’s SN40L and SN50 systems to power secure, on-premises AI inference. Liang emphasized the significance of this win, stating that it sends a message to the banking industry that it’s time not to completely depend on cloud services. The banks want heterogeneous infrastructure, and SambaNova’s solutions cater to this need.
SambaNova’s edge lies in its ‘premium inference’ capabilities, running the largest models and running them fast. The company was built specifically to handle multi-trillion-parameter models at scale. SambaNova fits these models onto a single rack, enabling them to run quickly. The company sees three types of customers: sovereign clouds, neoclouds, and enterprises building for their own use. In addition to JPMorgan, SambaNova also names Saudi Aramco, Intel, and other Japanese firms as customers.
The company will use the proceeds from this round to scale the business and shore up its supply chain against an incredible wave of demand. Liang described securing the supply chain as essential to fulfilling orders and buying the materials the company needs to deliver over the next 12 months.
Other investors participating in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group. New and existing investors also joined, including A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.
