$10.3B AI Chip Startup
Three Harvard dropouts just doubled their startup's value to $10.3B in 7 months. 🚀 Here is how Etched is challenging standard GPUs.
What the video says
How does a hardware startup founded by 3 Harvard dropouts double its value to $10.3 billion in just 7 months? The answer lies in Etched, which just secured a $300 million Series C round led by Sequoia, marking a significant milestone as the highest valuation ever for a Series C led by the firm.
While skeptics argued their specialized chips could only run specific large language models, the company clarified that their systems actually run any AI model, including mixture of experts and non-transformer designs like Mamba. This flexible architecture is already driving massive commercial traction, with the startup booking $1 billion in orders.
By designing a custom prefill chip that operates at a much lower voltage, Etched is delivering dramatically faster prompt processing without relying on standard GPUs.
