Etched reaches $21 billion valuation in Jane Street-led $700 million round
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Etched, a San Jose AI chip startup founded by three Harvard dropouts, has reached a $21 billion valuation after Jane Street led a $700 million funding round and became the first customer to buy an AI rack. Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone also joined the round, and Etched says orders for its chips total more than $1 billion. Etched's chips can perform communications tasks within 700 nanoseconds, compared with 4,000 nanoseconds for Nvidia's Blackwell.
Key Facts
- Jane Street led a $700 million funding round that values San Jose AI chip startup Etched at $21 billion.
- Etched said it has signed deals for its products totaling over $1 billion.
- Etched's chips can perform communications tasks within 700 nanoseconds, compared with 4,000 nanoseconds for Nvidia's Blackwell processor.
- Etched was founded by Harvard dropouts Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen and Chris Zhu.
- Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone also participated in the funding round.
The Funding Round
Jane Street led a $700 million funding round that values Etched at $21 billion and became its first AI rack customer. The $21 billion valuation is double Etched's estimated valuation from one month earlier. Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone also participated in the round. Etched was founded by Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen and Chris Zhu, three Harvard dropouts.
Chip Technology and Orders
Etched focuses on inference, where a trained AI model responds to questions or performs tasks, rather than general-purpose GPU workloads. The company's two main innovations are low voltage inference (LVI), which cuts electricity use while chips run at high speed without overheating, and Cluster Scale Memory (CSM), which connects chips to a shared memory pool for faster data access. Etched's chips can perform communications tasks within 700 nanoseconds, compared with 4,000 nanoseconds for Nvidia's Blackwell processor. Etched said it has already signed deals for its products totaling over $1 billion.
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Etched reaches $21 billion valuation in Jane Street-led $700 million round
