Tenstorrent, a startup developing AI chips, computing systems and processor designs, has raised $1.5 billion in Series E funding at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation.
Trace Capital and Innovation X led the round, Tenstorrent said Monday. New and existing investors, including Agostinelli Group, ARK Invest, Brett Barna, Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Maverick Silicon, Morgan Stanley and Protagonist also participated.
Other backers included Sandisk, T. Rowe Price, Tether Investments, Troluce Capital, Virtu Financial and XTX Markets.
The latest round more than doubles Tenstorrent's valuation from its previous Series D funding in December 2024. The startup raised more than $693 million in that round at a $2 billion pre-money valuation, or about $2.7 billion after the investment. Samsung Securities and AFW Partners led the funding.
Tenstorrent has now raised more than $2.5 billion in total. Its earlier rounds included a $100 million strategic investment in 2023 and more than $200 million at a $1 billion valuation in 2021.
Scaling AI chips and servers
Tenstorrent develops AI processors, servers and workstations for running large language models, video-generation systems and other AI applications. It sells products ranging from individual computing cards and workstations to racks and larger clusters.
The startup also licenses its AI and CPU designs to companies that want to develop their own chips. Its customers include Samsung and LG, according to Tenstorrent.
Tenstorrent's processors use RISC-V, an open chip architecture that companies can modify when designing their own processors. This gives customers another option besides proprietary processor architectures.
The startup said it will use the new funding to manufacture and deploy its Galaxy servers at a larger scale, expand its commercial operations globally and continue developing the AI and CPU designs it licenses to customers.
Galaxy systems combine multiple Tenstorrent processors and can operate independently or alongside existing GPU infrastructure. Tenstorrent said the systems support open-weight language and video-generation models.
"We built one architecture and sell it at every size," said Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent. "The future of compute is open, scalable, and owned by the people building on it."
Keller previously worked on Apple's A4 and A5 processors, AMD's Zen architecture and Tesla's self-driving chip.
Tenstorrent's funding comes as startups continue raising large rounds to compete in an AI chip market led by Nvidia. Positron raised $875 million at a $5 billion valuation last month, while SiMa.ai also raised $150 million at a $1.45 billion valuation last month.
Tenstorrent also attracted takeover interest from Intel and Qualcomm earlier this year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. The startup has instead continued as an independent company.