SambaNova valued at $11 billion after AI chip funding
SambaNova Systems Co-Founder and CEO Rodrigo Liang on the Artificial Intelligence Summit stage on the second day of Web Summit Vancouver 2026 at the Vancouver Convention Center in Vancouver, Canada.
Shauna Clinton | Sports file | Getty Images
AI chip startup raises $1 billion in funding as investors continue to pour money into companies looking to compete Nvidia.
SambaNova is now valued at $11 billion, thanks to financing led by General Atlantic with participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price and Capital Group.
The latest funding round, announced Wednesday, comes after the startup raised more than $350 million from investors earlier this year. IntelIt also announced a partnership with.
“The inference has brought everything out into the open, and so we’re seeing now that as an independent company you have the ability to move really quickly and drive the business across a wide range of industries,” SambaNova Co-Founder and CEO Rodrigo Liang told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the Raise AI summit in Paris.
“We’re scaling the business really quickly, and so the capital allows us to really accelerate the delivery of shelves that customers really want,” he said.
Liang added that the company is strongly considering an IPO in 2027, most likely in the United States.
How does SambaNova target AI inference?
SambaNova is one of a number of startups aiming to create buzz in the inference chips market. These are semiconductors designed to run large AI models quickly and cost-effectively, and have become a particular focus for the industry with the deployment of more complex AI tools.
The company is selling its latest chip, the SN50, as part of a server unit that can be deployed in data centers. This differs from the graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture that Nvidia sells and is critical for training large AI models.
But SambaNova also focuses on on-premises deployments, where server units can be installed in a data center owned by a particular company. on wednesday, JPMorgan Chase He said SambaNova will use its systems for “in-house inference on our demanding enterprise AI workloads.”
SambaNova said it could mean faster, more secure AI because on-premise inferences are controlled by the company using it rather than a third-party cloud provider or AI lab.
Public market investors are bullish on the semiconductor sector, often referred to as the “picks and shovels” of the AI structure. PHLX semiconductor indexTracking a basket of chip stocks are up nearly 80% this year.
But there is activity in the private markets around chip companies trying to challenge incumbents.
On Wednesday, Sunghyun Park, CEO of South Korean startup Rebellions, told CNBC exclusively that they are preparing for an initial public offering on Kospi in the first or second quarter of 2027.
Last year, Nvidia signed a deal to license technology from inference chip startup Groq.
