SambaNova's $350 million Series E led by Vista, Intel chips in
AI chip startup SambaNova is raising over $350 million in a Series E round led by Vista Equity Partners, with Cambium Capital and Intel joining in—Intel currently plans to invest about $100 million, with potential commitments of up to $150 million.
This fresh funding follows acquisition talks between SambaNova and Intel that later stalled.
SambaNova's AI chips are already outpacing NVIDIA's
SambaNova builds advanced AI chips that power everything from cloud services to next-gen apps, going head-to-head with giants like NVIDIA.
Even after layoffs in 2024, the company beat its sales targets last month.
Since launching in 2017, it's pulled in over $1 billion total funding and was valued at $5 billion during a big SoftBank-led round back in 2021.
Vista leads a growing AI hardware investment wave
Vista Equity Partners—the lead investor—manages over $100 billion, showing big money is betting on AI hardware.
The space is heating up: Cerebras just grabbed $1 billion at a $23 billion valuation, while Groq landed a massive NVIDIA licensing deal for $20 billion in cash.
It's clear the race for smarter chips is only getting faster.