AI chip maker SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation, 5 months after last mega round
Key Takeaways
- SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion in a first close of its Series F round at an $11 billion valuation, led by General Atlantic, according to TechCrunch.
- The round arrives about five months after SambaNova’s $350 million Series E and its unveiling of the SN50 chip, and follows a December report that Intel had explored buying the company for roughly $1.6 billion, per TechCrunch.
- SambaNova also disclosed that JPMorganChase has picked it as an inference-infrastructure partner, with the SN40L and SN50 systems set to run secure, on-premises AI workloads at the bank.
A Fast Reversal From Acquisition Talk to a Higher Valuation
SambaNova Systems, the Palo Alto-based AI chip maker, has closed the first tranche of a Series F funding round worth $1 billion, valuing the company at $11 billion, TechCrunch reports. General Atlantic led the round, and CEO and co-founder Rodrigo Liang told TechCrunch that additional investors are expected to join in the coming weeks as a second close is finalized.
The scale of the raise stands out given the timeline. Only five months earlier, in February, SambaNova closed a $350 million Series E alongside the unveiling of its SN50 chip, according to TechCrunch. Before that, in December, Bloomberg News reported that Intel had been in acquisition talks with SambaNova at a valuation of roughly $1.6 billion. The jump from a rumored $1.6 billion buyout price to an $11 billion funding valuation within about seven months illustrates how quickly sentiment and pricing have shifted for infrastructure providers tied to large-scale AI inference.
Asked by TechCrunch whether locking in both the Series E and Series F meant SambaNova had chosen to remain independent rather than pursue a sale, Liang did not give a firm answer. He said the company continues to field outside interest, telling TechCrunch, “We’re always being approached.” He added that an exit remains possible in the current AI market, but suggested the company’s growth trajectory points more toward an eventual public listing.
Intel’s relationship with SambaNova has not disappeared despite the collapsed acquisition talk. Intel has backed the startup since its Series C and again took part in this latest round. Five months ago the two companies announced a multi-year partnership to support AI inference development built on Intel’s Xeon chips, and Liang told TechCrunch they now co-develop products and bring them to market jointly, calling it a relationship that lets SambaNova pair Intel’s scale with its own technology.
Why the JPMorgan Deal and Customer Mix Matter
Alongside the funding news, SambaNova said JPMorganChase has selected it as an inference-infrastructure partner, with the SN40L and SN50 systems set to power secure, on-premises AI inference at the bank. Liang described this as significant, telling TechCrunch it signals to the wider banking sector that firms should not rely entirely on cloud services and that banks want infrastructure that mixes different environments rather than depending on a single model.
Liang framed the JPMorgan selection as evidence of a broader shift: banks of that scale building private, secure infrastructure to handle inference for their most sensitive models, a pattern he expects to extend beyond finance. He told TechCrunch that enterprises and governments are still early in adopting AI, with most growth so far concentrated among frontier AI labs and model developers, leaving what he called a large amount of untapped revenue.
SambaNova groups its customers into three categories, per TechCrunch: sovereign clouds, where governments fund local partners to build private infrastructure; neoclouds; and enterprises building systems for internal use. Besides JPMorgan, the company also names Saudi Aramco, Intel, and unspecified Japanese firms among its customers. Its SN40L system launched in the cloud in September 2023 and on-premises from November 2023, while the newer SN50, unveiled in February 2026, is due to begin shipping in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as its first deployment partner.
Liang told TechCrunch that SambaNova’s positioning rests on running very large models efficiently, fitting multi-trillion-parameter systems onto a single hardware rack to keep processing fast. He said the fresh capital will go toward scaling operations and reinforcing the company’s supply chain to meet what he called an incredible wave of demand, describing the funds as necessary to secure materials and fulfill orders over the next 12 months.
For readers tracking capital flows across the AI economy, the round is a reminder of how much private funding is still chasing chip and inference infrastructure providers even as public markets debate AI valuations more broadly. Large, fast-moving private rounds like this one can shape sentiment in adjacent markets, including crypto-linked AI infrastructure tokens, where investors often look to headline AI financings as a proxy for demand trends, even though the two markets remain structurally distinct.
Other participants in the round named by TechCrunch include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group, alongside new and returning backers such as A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.
Hype Check
Claim: SambaNova’s $11 billion valuation and JPMorganChase partnership suggest the company has decisively outgrown earlier acquisition talk and is on a clear path to independence or a public listing. Reality: TechCrunch reports the $1 billion Series F first close at $11 billion, the prior $350 million Series E, and the December-reported $1.6 billion Intel acquisition discussions, but Liang himself told TechCrunch he remains noncommittal on ruling out a future sale, even as he pointed toward a possible eventual public listing. The JPMorgan deal is real and notable, but it is one customer win within a company still describing enterprise and government AI adoption as an early-stage opportunity. Verdict: Mixed.
This is not financial advice.
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Researched with AI assistance, fact-checked and edited by a human. Not financial advice.