Etched, a UK-agnostic AI chip startup founded by three Harvard dropouts in 2022, has made headlines with its latest funding round. The company has secured a $300 million Series C investment at a whopping $10.3 billion valuation, doubling its valuation in just seven months.
The round was led by Sequoia, with Andreessen Horowitz, SK Hynix, Jane Street, and Diffusion Capital also participating. Notable investors include Peter Thiel, Andrej Karpathy, Dylan Field, Amjad Masad, and others.
Etched's innovative approach lies in its development of new chips and memory components that speed up AI inference without the need for graphics processing units (GPUs). The company claims that its systems can run any AI model, including those based on transformer technology and non-transformer designs.
The startup's prefill chip operates dramatically faster by running at a lower voltage than any other AI chip, generating less heat and allowing for more transistors. Etched has also created a new type of memory and interconnect technology, called cluster scale memory, which enables many chips to connect together and share a memory pool at low latency.
Etched's success comes despite initial skepticism from the tech industry, which questioned the feasibility of building a chip specifically for AI models. The company's founders, CEO Gavin Uberti, COO Robert Wachen, and CTO Chris Zhu, have faced criticism for their unconventional approach. However, their persistence has paid off, with Etched now boasting a significant list of high-profile investors and clients.