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AI chip startup closed a $100 million strategic financing from the likes of and in what the company is calling an 鈥渦p-round.鈥�

The Toronto-based company previously reached unicorn status after its $200 million-plus raise in 2021.聽

Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Catalyst Fund led the new round. Other investors include , , , and more.

Tenstorrent, which is developing a wide range of AI chips, will use the new cash infusion for product development, including design and development of AI chiplets and its ML software roadmap.

Founded in 2016, the company has now raised nearly $335 million, .

Tenstorrent is led by top chip designer , who has worked at , , and .

AI trends

The round does not just illustrate investors’ appetite for AI, but also two specific trends inside of the AI craze itself.

First, strategics are playing a huge role in growing out the AI ecosystem. , , and 鈥檚 venture arm, 1are putting millions, if not billions, of dollars into startups trying to get the innovation edge in generative AI.

Secondly, while the large generative AI platforms like and garner much of the attention when it comes to the space, investors and strategics are seeing big opportunities in the infrastructure layer that supports those platforms.

In recent months, investors have eyed anything from chips and enhanced compute to unique data sets to help with modeling. Startups including , which provides GPU-accelerated compute solutions, and , which creates vector databases, have raised big money contributing to the foundation layer of AI.

Further reading:

• AI Investing Boom Is Not New To Tech Giants (At Least Not Their VC Arms)
• 鈥楨xcited鈥� And 鈥楽cary鈥�: After Sizzling First Half, Don鈥檛 Expect AI Investment To Cool Off

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