AI chip maker SambaNova raises $1B at $11B valuation five months after last mega round
SambaNova Systems completed the first close of its Series F round, raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation led by General Atlantic. The company plans to use the funds to scale operations and secure its supply chain while deepening partnerships with Intel and JPMorganChase.
AI chip company SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation in the first close of its Series F round, led by General Atlantic. CEO and co-founder Rodrigo Liang told TechCrunch that more investors are expected to join in the coming weeks.
The latest round comes roughly five months after the company unveiled its SN50 chip and closed a $350 million Series E in February 2026. In December 2025, Bloomberg reported that SambaNova had been in acquisition talks with Intel at a valuation of around $1.6 billion. Liang was noncommittal about staying independent, saying the company continues to receive interest and that an IPO is likely given its momentum.
Intel, a backer since Series C, participated in this round. Five months ago, SambaNova announced a multi-year partnership with Intel to support AI inference development on Intel's Xeon chips, and the two now co-develop and co-market products.
SambaNova has been selected by JPMorganChase as an inference-infrastructure partner, with its SN40L and SN50 systems powering secure, on-premises AI inference. Liang called it a big deal that sends a message to the banking industry about reducing dependence on cloud services.
The company sees three customer types: sovereign clouds, neoclouds, and enterprises. Its customers include JPMorgan, Saudi Aramco, Intel, and Japanese firms.
SambaNova launched its SN40L in September 2023 (cloud) and November 2023 (on-premises). Its next-generation SN50, unveiled in February 2026, will begin shipping in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as the first deployment partner. The company focuses on premium inference, handling multi-trillion-parameter models on a single rack for fast performance.
Proceeds will be used to scale the business and secure the supply chain to meet demand. Other investors in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, Capital Group, A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.
