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July 9, 2026
AI chipmaker SambaNova has announced the first close of a $1 billion Series F funding round at an $11 billion valuation.
The round was led by General Atlantic, with significant participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group.
The company will use the capital to expand its rack-based systems worldwide and increase sales of its SN40 and SN50 AI chips for on-site enterprise use.
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How SambaNova is Helping Organizations Run Their Own AI Models
SambaNova was founded in 2017 by Rodrigo Liang, Kunle Olukotun, and Christopher Ré. The company builds AI computing systems that help organizations deploy and run artificial intelligence models. The chipmaker combines specialized AI hardware and software designed for businesses where speed, security, and data control are especially important.
SambaNova’s growth reflects a broader shift in the AI market. Businesses are moving beyond simply testing AI and are increasingly integrating it into their daily operations. This has created opportunities for technology companies focused on the infrastructure needed to make AI work in real-world business environments.
Most people are familiar with AI applications and agents, but another side of the market receives far less attention: the infrastructure that allows companies to run AI at scale. SambaNova is one of the companies operating in this area. As more organizations incorporate AI into their daily workflows, the companies building the systems behind the technology are becoming an increasingly important part of the industry.
More companies across industries are using artificial intelligence. Because of this, there is growing demand for technology that can support real business needs. Industries like finance, healthcare, government, and large companies are testing AI for automation, data analysis, research, and more efficient operations.
SambaNova built a platform that lets organizations run AI models inside their own systems. This gives businesses more control over how they set up and use AI. Big companies are already using it. JPMorgan Chase chose SambaNova’s technology to run AI inference applications.
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Deepdive About SambaNova’s SN40L and SN50 System
SambaNova said JPMorgan Chase has chosen it as an “inference-infrastructure partner.” Its SN40L and SN50 systems will power secure AI systems that run inside the bank. “Having JPMorgan Chase decide they’re going to use SambaNova for their inference solution is a big deal,” Liang told TechCrunch.
“It sends a message to the banking industry that it’s time not to depend on cloud services completely. These banks want heterogeneous.” Liang said the JPMorgan deal sends a signal to the wider market. Banks “of the caliber of JPMorgan” are now building their own private and secure systems to run inference on their most sensitive models, he said.
He expects this trend to spread beyond banking. Enterprises and governments are “just starting their AI journey,” Liang continued, with most of the growth so far occurring among tech model makers and frontier labs. He said there is still “a huge amount of revenue” left to capture.
SambaNova launched its SN40L in September 2023. It was available in the cloud and on premises from November 2023. Its next-generation SN50 was announced in February 2026. It is set to start shipping to customers in the second half of 2026, with SoftBank as the first deployment partner, Liang noted.
Liang said SambaNova’s strength is “premium inference,” which enables it to run the largest models fast. Today’s top models have trillions of parameters, and he said SambaNova was built to handle them at that scale. The company can fit multi-trillion-parameter models onto a single rack, enabling them to run quickly.
SambaNova sees three types of customers. The first is sovereign clouds, where governments fund local partners to build private clouds. Liang expects SambaNova to play a central role in this area. The second is neoclouds. The third is enterprises building for their own use. Besides JPMorgan, the company also lists Saudi Aramco, Intel, and other Japanese firms as customers.
How The New Fund Will Be Deployed
This is the first part of SambaNova’s Series F funding round. More investors are expected to join soon. “In the next few weeks, a few more investors will be coming in, and the second close is likely to finish up,” Rodrigo Liang, CEO and co-founder of SambaNova, told TechCrunch.
The new funding, which takes the startup to unicorn status, comes about five months after the Palo Alto startup launched its SN50 chip and raised $350 million in a Series E round in February. Reports from Bloomberg News in December also said SambaNova had discussed a possible deal with Intel worth around $1.6 billion.
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Five months ago, the startup announced a partnership with Intel to build AI inference systems using Intel’s Xeon chips. Now they also build and sell products together. “That gives us a great relationship with them that lets us leverage the scale of Intel with the technology we have,” Liang said.
Along with the funding, SambaNova said JPMorgan Chase chose it as an “inference-infrastructure partner.” Its SN40L and SN50 systems will run secure AI systems inside the bank. “Having JPMorgan Chase decide they’re going to use SambaNova for their inference solution is a big deal,” Liang told TechCrunch.
“It sends a message to the banking industry that it’s time not to completely depend on cloud services. These banks want heterogeneous.” SambaNova will use the money to grow the business and strengthen its supply chain due to high demand. “We’re using that capital to secure the supply chain,” he said, calling it important for meeting orders and buying materials needed for the next 12 months.
Other investors in the round include Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, and Capital Group. New and current investors also joined, including A&E Investment, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cambium Capital, BlackRock, Kabila Capital, QFO Capital, Qatar Investment Authority, Vista Equity Partners, and Volantis.
Main Image: Kunle Olukotun, Rodrigo Liang, and Christopher Ré, SambaNova Co-founders. Image Credit: SambaNova
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