Velaura Raises $110 Million as Its AI Chip Design Push Clears $1 Billion

Velaura AI has raised $110 million in a Series A led by Seligman Ventures, valuing the company at more than $1 billion. The capital backs its move from Bitcoin-mining chips into technology intended to reduce the power demands of AI processors.

The round follows a sharp repositioning. Velaura was previously known as Auradine and developed Bitcoin-mining chips. About six months before the financing announcement, it changed its brand and market focus; in March, it shifted from crypto accelerators to Titan Core, its offering for AI chip development.

Titan Core is a collection of processor building blocks and professional services, rather than one finished chip. Velaura says a customer can submit an RTL file, a high-level description of a processor, and use the company’s library of chip cells or commission custom low-voltage circuits. A cell is a transistor grouping built to handle a defined function, such as storing bits.

Velaura also offers what it calls a proprietary toolflow, a set of technical assets intended to improve chip reliability and manufacturing yield. The company says Titan Core supports manufacturing processes including two- and three-nanometer nodes. It is targeting AI data centers as well as physical-AI uses, including robotics and autonomous systems.

The power-savings case

• Velaura says matrix multiplications and related work can account for up to 70% of an AI chip’s power use.
• The company claims Titan Core can cut the energy required for those calculations by a factor of two to four.
• It estimates that reduction could save up to $1,300 per chip over three years.

$110 millionSeries A financing

Velaura raised $110 million in a Series A led by Seligman Ventures.

More than $1 billionPost-financing valuation

The financing valued Velaura at more than $1 billion.

Capricorn Investment Group joined as a new investor. Samsung Catalyst Fund, StepStone Group and Maverick Silicon participated as existing investors. Mayfield was also among the participants, alongside more than a half-dozen other investors identified by SiliconANGLE.

Velaura says it will use the money to accelerate engineering and expand customer-facing teams. It has disclosed work with multiple hyperscalers on chip projects using two- and three-nanometer manufacturing technologies, and sees edge-device processors as another potential market for its low-voltage technology.

Those projects are the central test of the new strategy. Velaura’s disclosed hyperscaler work does not name the companies or describe project status, while its power and savings figures remain company-supplied claims rather than independently reported results.