Etched secures $300 million from Sequoia and a16z to challenge Nvidia in AI inference
The Sequoia led Series C will support production and customer deployments of Etched’s AI inference systems.
AI chip startup Etched has raised $300 million in a Series C funding round that valued the company at $10.3 billion.
The round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Diffusion, and SK Hynix. Etched said the financing represents the highest valuation recorded for a Sequoia led Series C.
The company plans to use the funding to expand production and customer deployments of its AI inference systems. The latest round brings Etched’s total funding to more than $1 billion, less than one month after the company emerged from stealth.
Etched develops frontier inference clusters that combine custom chips, memory systems, racks, cooling equipment, interconnects, and software. The systems are designed to run advanced AI models with higher throughput and lower latency and power consumption.
The company recently opened an 80,000 square foot facility near its San Jose headquarters. The 10 megawatt site will support hardware prototyping, production, testing, and customer deployments. Etched also operates a factory in Taiwan and a 2 megawatt data center at its San Jose office.
Etched said demand for its inference systems continues to exceed supply as customers move from testing to production. The company has begun manufacturing systems to fulfill more than $1 billion in customer contracts, with its first racks scheduled to ship this summer.
The startup has expanded to around 400 employees, including engineers from Nvidia, Google’s TPU division, Broadcom, SK Hynix, and semiconductor manufacturing companies.