Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M

MatX, a chip startup based by two former Google {hardware} engineers, has raised a $500 million Collection B led by Jane Road and Situational Consciousness, an funding fund shaped by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

The corporate’s purpose is to make its processors 10 instances higher at coaching LLMs and delivering outcomes than Nvidia’s GPUs.  

Different traders within the spherical embrace Marvell Expertise, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, the startup’s founder and CEO Reiner Pope introduced Tuesday in a post on LinkedIn.

Though the corporate didn’t launch its newest valuation, Etched, MatX’s closest competitor, raised a $500 million spherical at a $5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported final month. Etched didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

MatX’s newest spherical comes greater than a 12 months after its Collection A of about $100 million, which was led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch earlier reported that the 2024 spherical valued the startup at greater than $300 million.

Earlier than co-founding MatX in 2023, Pope led AI software program improvement for Google’s TPUs, the tech big’s proprietary AI chips. His co-founder, Mike Gunter, was a lead designer of the TPU {hardware} earlier than leaving to launch the startup.

The brand new funding will assist MatX produce its chips with TSMC, with plans to begin transport them in 2027.