SiFive, established in 2015 by UC Berkeley engineers, has secured a $400 million oversubscribed funding round, valuing the company at $3.65 billion.
This development is noteworthy for various reasons. SiFive’s RISC-V open chip design is derived from the RISC processor, distinct from Intel’s x86 or ARM, the primary CPUs currently supporting Nvidia’s AI-focused GPU systems.
Nvidia participated in this funding round, along with numerous venture capitalists, private equity, and hedge funds. Atreides Management, led by former Fidelity investor Gavin Baker, spearheaded the round. Atreides also invested in Cerebras Systems’ $1 billion round. Other participants included Apollo Global Management, D1 Capital Partners, Point72 Turion, T. Rowe Price, and Sutter Hill Ventures.
SiFive’s business model resembles Arm’s past approach — licensing chip designs for customization while not producing the chips. Notably, Arm altered its model by launching an in-house AI chip developed with Meta with customers like OpenAI, Cerebras, and Cloudflare.
SiFive offers open and neutral chip designs, not dependent on specific clients. Pitchbook estimates that SiFive last raised funds in March 2022, securing $175 million led by Coatue Management at a $2.33 billion pre-money valuation. Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Aramco Ventures were participants in that round.
RISC-V was traditionally more common in smaller applications like embedded systems, but with new funding and Nvidia’s interest, SiFive is venturing into AI data center CPUs. SiFive’s designs will integrate with Nvidia’s CUDA software and NVLink Fusion, a rack server system enabling CPU connectivity to Nvidia’s “AI factory.”
In summary, while competitors Intel and AMD challenge Nvidia’s GPU dominance, Nvidia supports an emerging 11-year-old startup that designs CPUs using open and alternative technology.