AI chip company SambaNova Systems raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation in the first close of its Series F round, led by General Atlantic, with more investors expected to join soon.
“We’ll likely see a few more investors come on board and close a second round of deals in the coming weeks,” SambaNova CEO and co-founder Rodrigo Liang told TechCrunch.
The latest round comes about five months after the Palo Alto, California-based startup announced its SN50 chip along with a $350 million Series E in February. According to a December report from Bloomberg News, Sambanova is also in talks to acquire Intel, with the deal valued at about $1.6 billion.
Asked whether closing the Series E and F rounds meant Sambanova, which was founded in 2017, had settled on remaining independent, Liang demurred. He said the company continues to show interest. “We are approached all the time.” The CEO said the door is open for such an exit in this dynamic AI market, but momentum and growth will likely lead the company to “someday go public.”
SambaNova and Intel have been supporters since Series C and also participated in this round, deepening their bond. Five months ago, the nine-year-old startup announced a multi-year partnership with Intel to support AI inference development based on Intel’s Xeon chips. The two companies are currently co-developing and bringing products to market together. “That allows us to have a great relationship with them and leverage Intel’s scale and the technology that we have,” Liang said.
In addition to new funding, SambaNova announced that it has been selected by JPMorganChase as an “Inference Infrastructure Partner.” The company’s SN40L and SN50 systems are set to power secure on-premises AI inference in banks.
“JPMorgan Chase’s decision to use SambaNova for their inference solution is a big deal,” Liang told TechCrunch. “This sends a message to the banking industry that it’s not time to rely completely on cloud services. These banks want disparate (infrastructure).”
Liang said JPMorgan’s win was a signal to the broader market. Banks “on the caliber of JPMorgan” are now building their own private, secure infrastructure to run inference on the most sensitive models, a move he expects will resonate beyond banking, he said. Businesses and governments are “just beginning to embrace AI,” Liang continued, with most of the growth so far concentrated in the technology’s model makers and frontier labs, with what he called “huge revenue” still on the table.
SambaNova launched SN40L in September 2023, available in the cloud, and on-premises from November 2023. The next-generation SN50, announced in February 2026, is scheduled to begin shipping to customers in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as the first implementation partner, Liang said.
Liang said SambaNova’s advantage is “premium inference” that runs the largest models faster. He said current frontier models span trillions of parameters, and SambaNova is specifically built to handle them at that scale. The company stores trillions of parameter models in a single rack, allowing models to run quickly.
SambaNova sees three types of customers: The first is sovereign cloud, where governments provide funding to local partners to build private clouds, and Liang expects SambaNova to be a key player in that. The second is Neocloud. The third is companies building it for their own use. In addition to JPMorgan, the company also lists Saudi Aramco, Intel and other Japanese companies as clients.
SambaNova plans to use the proceeds to expand its business and strengthen its supply chain to counter what Liang calls an incredible wave of demand. “We are using that capital to secure our supply chain,” he said, explaining that the capital is essential to fulfilling orders and purchasing the materials the company needs to deliver over the next 12 months.
Other investors participating in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group. New and existing investors also participated, including A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Vista Equity Partners and Volantis.
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