Tenstorrent raises $1.5 billion to scale AI chip manufacturing at $6.2 billion valuation

Tenstorrent has secured $1.5 billion to move more of its AI hardware into production and commercial deployment. The Series E, announced October 19, values the company at $6.2 billion after the investment. It backs both Galaxy servers for running AI models and chip designs that customers license for their own processors.

Trace Capital and Innovation X led the round. Other participants included Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Morgan Stanley, Sandisk, T. Rowe Price and Tether Investments. Tenstorrent’s announcement identifies a mix of new and existing investors, rather than presenting the financing as backing solely from first-time shareholders.

The new price is more than double Tenstorrent’s $2.6 billion valuation in late 2024, according to TechCrunch. That comparison measures the change in investors’ valuation of the company; the operational purpose of this round is volume manufacturing and global commercial expansion.

One architecture, several ways to buy

Tenstorrent sells more than individual AI chips. Its hardware spans single cards and workstations, racks and larger clusters of servers. The company also develops the software that runs on its hardware. It says its open-source software stack lets developers run models locally and enterprises deploy them on their own premises.

Galaxy is the server offering at the center of the spending plan. Tenstorrent says the money will support deployments at scale, serving open-weight language models and video generation. The stated focus is running those models on Tenstorrent systems, not financing the development of a new Tenstorrent language model.

A second route reaches customers that want to design their own silicon rather than buy a finished Tenstorrent system. The company licenses processor designs, including its TT-Ascalon RISC-V CPU and Tensix AI cores. It names Samsung and LG among the chip designers using its licensed technology.

Part of the new capital will advance that AI and CPU intellectual property—the underlying designs customers incorporate into their chips. The funding plan therefore covers both deploying Tenstorrent-branded servers and improving technology sold for use inside other companies’ hardware. Those are two parts of the same financing announcement.

We built one architecture and sell it at every size.

Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent

The decision to stay independent

The fundraising follows a decision not to sell. TechCrunch, citing Bloomberg’s reporting, said Intel and Qualcomm had shown acquisition interest about five months earlier, at valuations reaching $5 billion. That was reported takeover interest, not an agreed transaction, and it provides context for the company’s choice to seek fresh equity.

Keller told Bloomberg that Tenstorrent decided to remain independent and raise more money after demonstrating that Galaxy servers could run DeepSeek models, according to TechCrunch. His explanation ties the financing decision to a working model deployment, rather than simply to investor appetite for another AI chip company.

Investors also emphasized execution across hardware and software. Trace Capital founder Ben Mahdavi pointed to the team’s silicon, software and licensing experience. Protagonist managing partner George Bousis said Tenstorrent’s video-generation results beat industry benchmarks ahead of his firm’s expectations. That performance assessment comes from a participating investor, not an independent test.