Tenstorrent Raises $1.5 Billion at $6.2B Valuation to Take On Nvidia in AI Chips
Tenstorrent, the chip startup trying to chip away at Nvidia’s grip on AI hardware, raised $1.5 billion on Monday at a $6.2 billion valuation. The round more than doubled the company’s value from the roughly $2.6 billion it fetched in late 2024. That makes the 10-year-old startup one of the best-funded Nvidia challengers on the planet. CEO Jim Keller told Bloomberg the company turned down acquisition interest from Intel and Qualcomm, reportedly at valuations of up to $5 billion, to stay independent and raise more capital instead. The deciding factor, Keller said, was Tenstorrent’s Galaxy servers: the company showed they could run DeepSeek’s open-weight models, and decided the business was worth building, not selling. ...