SambaNova Systems has raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, marking another major financing step for the AI chip company. The first close of its Series F round was led by General Atlantic, with more investors expected to join soon.
The Palo Alto, California-based startup is using the moment to position itself around AI inference: the work of running models after they have been trained. Its pitch is aimed at customers that want private, secure infrastructure and systems capable of handling the largest models quickly.
A fast follow to the Series E
The new round arrives roughly five months after SambaNova unveiled its SN50 chip and announced a $350 million Series E in February. That timing matters because it shows how quickly capital is moving around companies building infrastructure for AI workloads.
SambaNova, founded in 2017, has also been the subject of acquisition interest. According to a December report from Bloomberg News, the company had been in acquisition talks with Intel in a deal that valued it at roughly $1.6 billion.
Asked whether closing its Series E and Series F rounds meant SambaNova had decided to remain independent, CEO and co-founder Rodrigo Liang did not give a firm answer. He told TechCrunch, “We’re always being approached.”
Liang also said the door remains open to an exit in the current AI market. Still, he described the company’s momentum and growth as more likely to push SambaNova toward “being public at some point.”
Intel relationship becomes more strategic
Intel has been connected to SambaNova for years. It has backed the company since its Series C and also participated in the latest round.
The relationship has become broader than investment. Five months ago, SambaNova announced a multi-year partnership with Intel to support AI inference development based on Intel’s Xeon chip. The two companies now co-develop products and take them to market together.
Liang framed that partnership as a way for SambaNova to combine its own technology with Intel’s reach. “That gives us a great relationship with them that lets us leverage the scale of Intel with the technology we have,” he said.
That matters for a company trying to sell AI systems into large organizations. The customers SambaNova is pursuing often need infrastructure that is not only powerful, but also supported by partners that can help deliver and deploy it at scale.
JPMorganChase adds weight to the inference push
Alongside the financing, SambaNova said JPMorganChase selected it as an “inference-infrastructure partner.” SambaNova’s SN40L and SN50 systems are set to power secure, on-premises AI inference at the bank.
Liang described the JPMorgan Chase selection as important for the wider banking market. “Having JPMorgan Chase decide they’re going to use SambaNova for their inference solution is a big deal,” he told TechCrunch. “It sends a message to the banking industry that it’s time not to completely depend on cloud services. These banks want heterogeneous [infrastructure].”
His argument is that banks “of the caliber of JP Morgan” are building private, secure infrastructure to run inference on their most sensitive models. He also expects that shift to matter beyond banking.
For SambaNova, the JPMorgan win supports a broader message: AI infrastructure demand is not limited to model makers and frontier labs. Liang said enterprises and governments are “just starting their AI journey,” while most growth so far has been concentrated among tech’s model makers and frontier labs. He described the remaining opportunity as “a huge amount of revenue.”
SN40L, SN50 and the customer map
SambaNova launched its SN40L in September 2023. It was available in the cloud first, then on-premises from November 2023.
The company’s next-generation SN50 was unveiled in February 2026. It is due to begin shipping to customers in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as its first deployment partner, according to Liang.
SambaNova describes its edge as “premium inference” for running the largest models quickly. Liang said frontier models now span trillions of parameters, and that SambaNova was built specifically to handle models at that scale. The company says it can fit multi-trillion-parameter models onto a single rack, which helps them run quickly.
The company sees three main customer groups:
- Sovereign clouds, where governments fund local partners to build private clouds.
- Neoclouds, which are another target for its AI infrastructure systems.
- Enterprises building infrastructure for their own use.
In addition to JPMorgan, SambaNova names Saudi Aramco, Intel, and other Japanese firms as customers.
Supply chain is the funding priority
SambaNova plans to use the new capital to scale the business and strengthen its supply chain. Liang described the current demand environment as an incredible wave of demand.
“We’re using that capital to secure the supply chain,” he said. He described that work as essential to fulfilling orders and buying the materials the company needs to deliver over the next 12 months.
That focus is practical. For an AI chip company, raising capital is only part of the challenge. The company also has to secure the parts, systems and capacity needed to turn customer demand into delivered infrastructure.
Other investors participating in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group. New and existing investors also joined, including A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.