Nvidia anti-AI chip startup MatX raises $500M

MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware experts, has raised $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund created by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

The company’s goal is to make its processors 10 times better at training LLMs and delivering results than Nvidia’s GPUs.

Other investors in the round are Marvell Technology, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, founder and CEO Reiner Pope announced Tuesday in post on LinkedIn.

Although the company did not release its latest valuation, Etched, MatX’s closest competitor, raised $500 million in The cost of $ 5 billionBloomberg reported last month. Etched did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MatX’s latest round comes a year after its Series A round of nearly $100 million, which was led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch previously reported that the 2024 cycle was the starting price for more $300 million.

Before co-founding MatX In 2023, Pope led the development of AI software for Google’s TPUs, AI technology chips. Co-founder, Mike Gunter, was a TPU tool maker before he left to start it.

The new funding will help MatX develop its own chips with TSMC, with plans to begin shipping in 2027.