AI Chip Maker SambaNova Raises $1B at $11B Valuation in Series F First Close

AI chip maker SambaNova has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation in the first close of its Series F funding round, the company announced. The raise comes just months after reports surfaced that Intel was exploring an acquisition of SambaNova for approximately $1.6 billion — a deal that ultimately did not materialize.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, SambaNova develops AI accelerators based on a reconfigurable dataflow architecture. The company's approach differentiates from NVIDIA's GPU dominance by targeting a broader range of AI workloads with a more flexible hardware design.

The scale of this funding round and the elevated valuation signal that investors remain bullish on the AI chip market. While NVIDIA dominates training workloads, the fragmentation of inference use cases creates openings for specialized players like SambaNova.

The reported Intel acquisition discussions that valued SambaNova far lower now stand in stark contrast to today's $11 billion valuation, suggesting the company's board and investors see greater long-term value in remaining independent.

SambaNova's customer base spans enterprise, government, and research institutions, with an end-to-end AI solution encompassing hardware, software, and pre-trained models. The fresh capital will fund capacity expansion, product development, and go-to-market initiatives.

As AI deployment shifts increasingly toward inference, the competition in inference silicon will intensify. SambaNova's ability to scale its architecture into meaningful market share will be a key metric to watch.