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Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Catalyst Fund are leading a financing round that will raise more than $100 million for Tenstorrent, the Canadian AI chip startup said. The company added that it has verbal commitments that would increase the investment round to more than $130 million by the time it closes next month—bringing the total raised to date to more than $350 million.
The money will be used to fund team growth, as well as develop AI chiplets and its machine-learning software roadmap.
Founded in 2016, Tenstorrent sells AI processors and licenses AI and RISC-V IP to customers that want to own and customize their silicon. The company has become synonymous with AI chips, given CEO Jim Keller’s illustrious career designing central processing units (CPUs) and systems with the likes of AMD, Apple, Tesla and Intel.
This is clearly a major factor behind the new, big-name, strategic investors coming in to lead the latest funding round.
In an interview with EE Times, David Bennett, chief customer officer for Tenstorrent, said, “The attractiveness of Tenstorrent is the team and its history of delivering. We are silicon-ready, which is available to use, and we have the full software stack. If you want to own your own ecosystem, we are the only ones around.”
He added that the automotive industry was particularly attracted to owning the silicon and ecosystem and having sensor-to-server on the same silicon and software stack.
Chiplets will be huge, Bennett said, noting that Tenstorrent hoped to help universalize chiplets.
RISC-V created a real opportunity for customers to get targeted silicon, he said: “With the RISC-V story, customization and optimization are key. The important thing is you own the silicon, and that ownership is what customers find especially attractive.”
Bennett emphasized that the biggest concern or question among customers was: “How do we own our own silicon?”
Both Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Catalyst Fund are looking to utilize Tenstorrent’s technology to accelerate their own AI requirements, whether they are for automotive, mobile or future technologies.
Hyundai Motor Group said in its own prepared remarks that the investment in Tenstorrent will enable it to look at integrating AI into future Hyundai, Kia and Genesis vehicles and other future mobilities, including robotics and advanced air mobility.
The group expects to leverage Tenstorrent’s technologies and experience to jointly develop optimized semiconductors while strengthening its own technological capabilities. These will be applied to CPUs and neural processing units (NPUs) for future vehicles and mobility solutions. Hyundai’s 2023 CEO Investor Day in June provided a taste of its ambitions in these areas. Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. will invest a total of $50 million ($30 million and $20 million, respectively).
Heung-soo Kim, executive VP and head of the global strategy office at Hyundai Motor Group, said, “Tenstorrent’s high growth potential and high-performance AI semiconductors will help the group secure competitive technologies for future mobilities. With this investment, the group expects to develop optimized but differentiated semiconductor technology that will aid future mobilities and strengthen internal capabilities in AI technology development.”
Samsung Catalyst Fund is a venture capital fund of Samsung Electronics. Its portfolio includes Autotalks, Blaize, Commsignia, Graphcore and SambaNova Systems.
Marco Chisari, executive VP of Samsung Electronics and head of the Samsung Semiconductor Innovation Center, said, “Tenstorrent’s industry-leading technology, executive leadership and aggressive roadmap motivated us to co-lead this funding round. We are excited by the opportunity to work with Tenstorrent to accelerate AI and compute innovations.”
Tenstorrent’s Keller said he was humbled by the trust shown by Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Catalyst Fund leading its latest funding round.
“It has been impressive watching Hyundai Motor Group become the third-largest automaker in the world through their aggressive adoption of technology, including their acquisition of Boston Dynamics, their joint venture with Aptiv, and now their investment in us,” he said.
In addition, Keller said, “Samsung has long been a leader in the electronics industry, and they are the ideal partner to co-lead this round.”
Existing investors, including Fidelity Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, Epiq Capital and Maverick Capital, also participated in the funding round.
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